3D bioprinted glioma models

Abstract

Glioma is one of the most malignant types of cancer and most gliomas remain incurable. One of the hallmarks of glioma is its invasiveness. Furthermore, glioma cells tend to readily detach from the primary tumor and travel through the brain tissue, making complete tumor resection impossible in many cases. To expand the knowledge regarding the invasive behavior of glioma, evaluate drug resistance, and recapitulate the tumor microenvironment, various modeling strategies were proposed in the last decade, including three-dimensional (3D) biomimetic scaffold-free cultures, organ-on-chip microfluidics chips, and 3D bioprinting platforms, which allow for the investigation on patient-specific treatments. The emerging method of 3D bioprinting technology has introduced a time- and cost-efficient approach to createin vitromodels that possess the structural and functional characteristics of human organs and tissues by spatially positioning cells and bioink. Here, we review emerging 3D bioprinted models developed for recapitulating the brain environment and glioma tumors, with the purpose of probing glioma cell invasion and gliomagenesis and discuss the potential use of 4D printing and machine learning applications in glioma modelling.

Keywords: 3D bioprinting; brain cancer; cancer treatment; glioma; in vitro models.