Research Highlights
VitroGel® ORGANOID Unlocks Precision High-Throughput Drug Screening Insights in Ovarian Cancer
VitroGel® ORGANOID empowered breakthrough single-cell pharmacotranscriptomic profiling by enabling robust, patient-specific cancer organoid models for drug discovery and resistance analysis.
Category:
Organoids
Subcategory/cell type:
Tissue Fragment/PDXO/ex vivo
Institution:
Disease Networks Unit, Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
Team:
Alice Dini, Harlan Barker, Emilia Piki, Subodh Sharma, Juuli Raivola, Astrid Murumägi & Daniela Ungureanu.
Hydrogel:
VitroGel® ORGANOID-4 (Cat. No: VHM04-4)
In this study, Dini et al. present a high-throughput pharmacotranscriptomic pipeline utilizing live-cell barcoding and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) to analyze drug response mechanisms and resistance pathways in high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). By leveraging patient-derived cells, the research reveals tumor heterogeneity and identifies adaptive feedback loops that contribute to drug resistance. 
VitroGel® ORGANOID played a crucial role in establishing and maintaining 3D cultures of patient-derived tumor cells. The hydrogel provided a biofunctional matrix that supported the growth, phenotypic stability, and viability of cancer organoids, ensuring a physiologically relevant environment for drug response studies. This stable culture system was essential for enabling multiplexed scRNA-Seq workflows, facilitating efficient live-cell barcoding, and high-resolution transcriptional profiling.
By culturing HGSOC organoids in VitroGel®, the study uncovered resistance mechanisms, such as the upregulation of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) and caveolin-1 (CAV1) in response to PI3K–AKT–mTOR inhibitors. These findings enabled the identification of potential synergistic drug combinations to overcome resistance.
Overall, the integration of VitroGel® ORGANOID into this cutting-edge pharmacotranscriptomic platform underscores its value in precision medicine and drug discovery. Its ability to sustain complex tumor models and support high-throughput single-cell analyses highlights its transformative potential for advancing cancer research.
