In vitro cell cultures are essential for modeling disease, but traditional 2D cell culture systems fall short in replicating the complex microenvironments of native tissue. This limitation hinders the translation of in vitro findings to in vivo contexts and contributes to the high attrition rates seen in drug discovery pipelines.
3D cell culture platforms have been developed to more accurately mimic tissue architecture. This includes hydrogel-based scaffolds, such as PeptiMatrix™, a fully defined peptide-based matrix, free from any animal-derived components. PeptiMatrix™ hydrogels show promising results for high-throughput drug discovery, especially due to their mechanical tunability and high reproducibility.
However, challenges still remain for 3D models. Spot-to-spot variation caused by the pipetting of viscous biomaterials, manual labor intensiveness, and cell damage during dispensing all reduce reproducibility and efficiency. To address these challenges, PeptiMatrix Ltd. collaborated with SPT Labtech to assess the compatibility of the Dragonfly® Discovery liquid handler for dispensing PeptiMatrix™ hydrogels encapsulating cell lines. We used two commonly applied cancer cell lines: MCF7 (a breast cancer cell line) and HepG2 (a liver cancer cell line) as representative cell types for model systems in oncology and hepatotoxicity.