3D cell cultures are regarded as a better and more relevant approach for screening drugs and therapeutics, particularly due to their likeness with the in vivo conditions. Spheroids offer an intermediate platform between in vitro and in vivo models, for conducting tumor-based investigations. In this study, a simple setup was developed for consistent generation of lung co-culture spheroids, which were developed using the cancer cell lines A549, NCI H460, and fibroblast cells WI-38. The potential of these spheroids for evaluating the toxicity of Eudragit® RL 100 nanoparticles (ENP) was explored. Monodisperse ENP, having the size range of 140–200 nm was prepared using the nanoprecipitation method. These were loaded with the poorly water-soluble anticancer drug paclitaxel. The evaluation of toxicity and uptake of drug-loaded ENP revealed that 2D monolayers were more sensitive to treatment than 3D spheroids. Within spheroids, co-cultures were more resistant to the treatment than monocultures. Overall, our findings demonstrated that the lung co-culture spheroids were a suitable model for accelerating the efficacy and toxicity-related investigations of novel drug delivery systems.

中文翻译：

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用于紫杉醇负载 Eudragit® RL 100 纳米颗粒评估的肺共培养球体的建立和表征

3D 细胞培养被认为是筛选药物和治疗方法的更好和更相关的方法，特别是因为它们与体内条件相似。球体在体外和体内模型之间提供了一个中间平台，用于进行基于肿瘤的研究。在这项研究中，开发了一个简单的设置，用于一致生成肺共培养球体，这些球体是使用癌细胞系 A549、NCI H460 和成纤维细胞 WI-38 开发的。探索了这些球体在评估 Eudragit® RL 100 纳米颗粒 (ENP) 毒性方面的潜力。使用纳米沉淀法制备尺寸范围为 140-200 nm 的单分散 ENP。这些都装有水溶性差的抗癌药物紫杉醇。对载药 ENP 的毒性和摄取的评估表明，2D 单层比 3D 球体对治疗更敏感。在球状体中，共培养比单一培养更能抵抗治疗。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，肺共培养球体是加速新型药物输送系统的功效和毒性相关研究的合适模型。