TY  - JOUR
A1  - Thanapirom, K
A1  - Caon, E
A1  - Papatheodoridi, M
A1  - Frenguelli, L
A1  - Al-akkad, W
A1  - Zhenzhen, Z
A1  - Vilia, MG
A1  - Pinzani, M
A1  - Mazza, G
A1  - Rombouts, K
KW  - decellularized liver scaffolds; drug screening; liver fibrosis; liver cancer; sorafenib; regorafenib; STAT3; SHP-1; TGF?1; EMT; E-cadherin; 3D in vitro model
JF  - Cancers
UR  - https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13194936
SN  - 2072-6694
N2  - The introduction of new preclinical models for in vitro drug discovery and testing based on 3D tissue-specific extracellular matrix (ECM) is very much awaited. This study was aimed at developing and validating a co-culture model using decellularized human liver 3D ECM scaffolds as a platform for anti-fibrotic and anti-cancer drug testing. Decellularized 3D scaffolds obtained from healthy and cirrhotic human livers were bioengineered with LX2 and HEPG2 as single and co-cultures for up to 13 days and validated as a new drug-testing platform. Pro-fibrogenic markers and cancer phenotypic gene/protein expression and secretion were differently affected when single and co-cultures were exposed to TGF-?1 with specific ECM-dependent effects. The anti-fibrotic efficacy of Sorafenib significantly reduced TGF-?1-induced pro-fibrogenic effects, which coincided with a downregulation of STAT3 phosphorylation. The anti-cancer efficacy of Regorafenib was significantly reduced in 3D bioengineered cells when compared to 2D cultures and dose-dependently associated with cell apoptosis by cleaved PARP-1 activation and P-STAT3 inhibition. Regorafenib re-versed TGF-?1-induced P-STAT3 and SHP-1 through induction of epithelial mesenchymal marker E-cadherin and downregulation of vimentin protein expression in both co-cultures engrafting healthy and cirrhotic 3D scaffolds. In their complex, the results of the study suggest that this newly proposed 3D co-culture platform is able to reproduce the natural physio-pathological microenvi-ronment and could be employed for anti-fibrotic and anti-HCC drug screening.
ID  - discovery10136333
IS  - 19
N1  - © 2021 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
AV  - public
Y1  - 2021/09/30/
VL  - 13
TI  - Optimization and validation of a novel three-dimensional co-culture system in decellularized human liver scaffold for the study of liver fibrosis and cancer
ER  -