In general, there are two major differences:
- Nature of the driving force for development: Whereas internal developmental processes drive organoid formation, spheroids develop primarily via cell-to-cell adhesion.
- Length of time 3D cultures can be maintained: Long-term, in vitro expansion of cells in culture needs an immature stem cell population to replenish dying cells. Organoids are derived from, and maintain, a population of stem cells during in vitro culture, guaranteeing their long-term viability. This is achieved by optimising culture growth conditions, such as providing a basement membrane matrix (i.e. Matrigel®) and adding a selection of agonists (e.g. Wnt and tyrosine kinase receptor) and inhibitors (e.g. bone morphogenetic protein/transforming growth factor-β).
Importantly, when organoids are passaged they retain the genetic features of the original organ over several generations. In contrast, the long-term culture of tissue-derived spheroids is challenging, possibly due to inherent technical difficulties in extracting and maintaining viable cells.
Organoids and spheroids can be generated from a variety of healthy as well as diseased cell types and tissues, such as patient tumours. Tumour-derived organoids and spheroids have been generated and extensively investigated for their use in drug discovery. However, there are some key differences in establishing the two from patient-derived tumours.
MBL International supports advances in cell culture by offering Afamin/Wnt3a Condition Medium, recombinant Afamin/Wnt3a and FGF-Max. Find out more:
Information provided by MBL.
Caltag Medsystems is the distributor of MBL products in the UK and Ireland. If you have any questions about these products, please contact us.