Summary
Published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (2025), this peer-reviewed study used 3D Petri Dish® micro-molds to form scaffold-free 3D microtissues. Full citation: Liu, Yuan, et al. Direct transfer of multicellular tumor spheroids grown in agarose microarrays for high-throughput mass spectrometry imaging analysis
Direct transfer of multicellular tumor spheroids grown in agarose microarrays for high-throughput mass spectrometry imaging analysis
Research Overview
Mass spectrometry imaging offers unmatched sensitivity and molecular specificity for profiling drug distribution in tumor spheroids, but sample preparation has been a bottleneck: spheroids are usually transferred one at a time into embedding medium and sectioned individually.
This study developed a high-throughput alternative. Spheroids were cultured in agarose microarrays cast from Microtissues® molds, and after culture the entire agarose microarray — spheroids in place — was lifted out and frozen-sectioned as a unit, eliminating individual transfers and yielding many spheroid sections per slide for mass spectrometry imaging.
Key Discoveries
- Whole agarose microarrays from Microtissues® molds transferred directly to frozen sectioning
- Eliminates one-by-one spheroid transfer, the throughput bottleneck for MSI
- Yields high-throughput multicellular tumor spheroid sections for molecular and drug-distribution imaging
