Open AccessArticle

Vincent Gassl

Merel R. Aberle

Bas Boonen

Rianne D. W. Vaes

Steven W. M. Olde Damink

Sander S. Rensen

1

Department of Surgery, Maastricht University Medical Centre, 6229 HX Maastricht, The Netherlands

2

NUTRIM-School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism, Maastricht University, 6229 ER Maastricht, The Netherlands

3

Department of Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany

*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 14 October 2022 / Revised: 6 November 2022 / Accepted: 11 November 2022 / Published: 16 November 2022

Organoids are increasingly used to investigate patient-specific drug responsiveness since they are thought to be more representative of a patient’s tumor than two-dimensional primary cell cultures. Furthermore, cell culture media that mimic physiological nutrient concentrations have been suggested to improve chemotherapy screens of cultured cells. As both come with increased costs and complexity, we investigated the response of two patient-derived pancreatic cancer organoids (PANCO09b, PANCO11b) growing as 3D organoids versus 2D transformed cell cultures in either conventional or physiological media towards five chemotherapeutics (gemcitabine, paclitaxel, SN-38, 5-fluorouacil, and oxaliplatin). Both patient-derived pancreatic cancer cell cultures showed similar drug-responses when cultured in 3D compared to 2D, as well as upon culture in physiological versus conventional culture media, except for higher sensitivity towards SN-38 when PANCO11b was cultured in 2D or in physiological media. These data show that drug-responsiveness of primary pancreatic cancer cells is not majorly impacted by culture conditions.