Organ culture models have been used over the past few decades to study development and disease. The in vitro three-dimensional (3D) culture system of organoids is well known, however, these 3D systems are both costly and difficult to culture and maintain. As such, less expensive, faster and less complex methods to maintain 3D cell culture models would complement the use of organoids. Chick embryos have been used as a model to study human biology for centuries, with many fundamental discoveries as a result. These include cell type induction, cell competence, plasticity and contact inhibition, which indicates the relevance of using chick embryos when studying developmental biology and disease mechanisms. Here, we present an updated protocol that enables time efficient, cost effective and long-term expansion of fetal organ spheroids (FOSs) from chick embryos. Utilizing this protocol, we generated FOSs in an anchorage-independent growth pattern from seven different organs, including brain, lung, heart, liver, stomach, intestine and epidermis. These three-dimensional (3D) structures recapitulate many cellular and structural aspects of their in vivo counterpart organs and serve as a useful developmental model. In addition, we show a functional application of FOSs to analyze cell-cell interaction and cell invasion patterns as observed in cancer. The establishment of a broad ranging and highly effective method to generate FOSs from different organs was successful in terms of the formation of healthy, proliferating 3D organ spheroids that exhibited organ-like characteristics. Potential applications of chick FOSs are their use in studies of cell-to-cell contact, cell fusion and tumor invasion under defined conditions. Future studies will reveal whether chick FOSs also can be applicable in scientific areas such as viral infections, drug screening, cancer diagnostics and/or tissue engineering.

中文翻译：

---

鸡胎儿器官球体作为研究发育和疾病的模型

在过去的几十年中，器官培养模型已被用于研究发育和疾病。类器官的体外三维 (3D) 培养系统是众所周知的，但是，这些 3D 系统既昂贵又难以培养和维护。因此，维护 3D 细胞培养模型的更便宜、更快和更简单的方法将补充类器官的使用。几个世纪以来，小鸡胚胎一直被用作研究人类生物学的模型，并因此产生了许多基本发现。这些包括细胞类型诱导、细胞能力、可塑性和接触抑制，这表明在研究发育生物学和疾病机制时使用鸡胚的相关性。在这里，我们提出了一个更新的协议，可以提高时间效率，鸡胚胎中胎儿器官球体 (FOS) 的成本效益和长期扩增。利用该协议，我们从七个不同的器官（包括大脑、肺、心脏、肝脏、胃、肠和表皮）中以独立于锚定的生长模式生成 FOS。这些三维 (3D) 结构概括了其体内对应器官的许多细胞和结构方面，并作为有用的发育模型。此外，我们展示了 FOS 在分析癌症中观察到的细胞间相互作用和细胞侵袭模式的功能应用。在形成具有器官样特征的健康、增殖的 3D 器官球体方面，建立了一种从不同器官生成 FOS 的广泛且高效的方法是成功的。小鸡 FOS 的潜在应用是它们在特定条件下用于研究细胞间接触、细胞融合和肿瘤侵袭。未来的研究将揭示小鸡 FOS 是否也适用于病毒感染、药物筛选、癌症诊断和/或组织工程等科学领域。