title: Developments in three-dimensional cell culture technology aimed at improving the accuracy of in vitro analyses.
abstract: Drug discovery programmes require accurate in vitro systems for drug screening and testing. Traditional cell culture makes use of 2D (two-dimensional) surfaces for ex vivo cell growth. In such environments, cells are forced to adopt unnatural characteristics, including aberrant flattened morphologies. Therefore there is a strong demand for new cell culture platforms which allow cells to grow and respond to their environment in a more realistic manner. The development of 3D (three-dimensional) alternative substrates for in vitro cell growth has received much attention, and it is widely acknowledged that 3D cell growth is likely to more accurately reflect the in vivo tissue environments from which cultured cells are derived. 3D cell growth techniques promise numerous advantages over 2D culture, including enhanced proliferation and differentiation of stem cells. The present review focuses on the development of scaffold technologies for 3D cell culture.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Maltman
authors.forename: Stefan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Przyborski
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D057166:High-Throughput Screening Assays / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds