Impact of the spheroid model complexity on drug response.

Pharmaceutical investigators are searching for preclinical models closely resembling the original cancer and predicting clinical outcome. This study compares drug response of three in vitro 3D-drug screening models with different complexity. Tumor cell line spheroids were generated from the cell lines Caco-2, DLD-1, COLO 205, HT-29 and HCT-116, and treated with clinically relevant combination therapies, namely 5-FU/oxaliplatin (FO), 5-FU/irinotecan (FI) and the molecular drugs Cetuximab, Trastuzumab, Vorinostat and Everolimus.

Combination of antiangiogenic therapy using the mTOR-inhibitor everolimus and low-dose chemotherapy for locally advanced and/or metastatic pancreatic cancer: a dose-finding study.

Pancreatic adenocarcinomas are associated with a poor survival prognosis. Besides curative surgical resection, only limited therapies with modest impact are available. New evidence suggests that the mammalian target of rapamycin pathway may be involved in the pathogenesis of neuroendocrine tumors, and breast and renal cell cancer.

The immunosuppressant FTY720 inhibits tumor angiogenesis via the sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor 1.

FTY720, a sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) analog, acts as an immunosuppressant through trapping of T cells in secondary lymphoid tissues. FTY720 was also shown to prevent tumor growth and to inhibit vascular permeability. The MTT proliferation assay illustrated that endothelial cells are more susceptible to the anti-proliferative effect of FTY720 than Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC1) cells.