Three-Dimensional Microfluidic Drug Screening Platform to Study Vascularized Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Hypoxic Condition

Abstract

Hypoxia in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is known as the leading cause of metastasis, proliferation, and chemoresistance of HCC cells. These features have been studied using various in vivo and in vitro models to reconstruct hypoxic tumor microenvironment (TME). In this study, we demonstrate a three-dimensional in vitro model to reconstruct microvascularized HCC in hypoxia. This platform enables to investigate the cellular response after culturing and drug screening in hypoxic microvascularized HCC: hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) expression, proliferation, angiogenesis, and drug resistance. These findings suggest that this microfluidic device allows anti-cancer therapeutics development by investigating hypoxic HCC with microvasculature.