Alternatives and Refinement for Animal Experimentation in Cancer Research

Abstract

Globally cancer is a major public health issue and is a second biggest cause of deaths. Although animal models have limitations in terms of predictive and translational value to humans, they have played a major role in understanding this disease and anticancer drug discovery. In cancer research the most commonly used animal species are mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits, Guinea pigs, fish and amphibians. Use of different cell lines in tissue culture system offers a great relief from use of animals at the same time provide important clues before embarking the animal experiments. Use of spontaneously developing tumor models are encouraged rather producing diseases in the animals. Beside the alternatives, refinement also plays important role in reducing the animal usage in cancer research. However, cancer research use whole body system to evaluate the new strategies for diagnosis and treatment of cancer. This paper highlights the available alternatives and refinements for animal experimentation. A positive note is that if coupled with the refinements, even a minimised number of animal usage shall also yield the meaningful and acceptable results.

Advancing Tumor Microenvironment Research by Combining Organs-on-Chips and Biosensors

“…However, these models lack key features of human cancer, such as genomic instability, latency, tumor heterogeneity and microenvironment, limiting their ability to recapitulate the real pathobiology of human cancers [87]. Furthermore, ethical considerations and the social awareness to reduce animal experimentation have driven the development of advanced in vitro models toward more accurately represented stages of its human disease counterpart [88]. To date, numerous in vitro 3D models have been developed to bridge the gap between conventional cancer models and native human tumors [82,89].…”

Visualizing Extracellular Vesicles and Their Function in 3D Tumor Microenvironment Models

“…Various 3D culture models have been advanced to mimic the TME and overcome the limitations of 2D cultures and the intractable nature of in vivo tumor models [ 35 , 53 , 54 ]. Such models are based on new biomaterials, 3D bioprinting of cells in matrices, organ-on-a-chip cultures and combinations that support organ-like systems, such as organoids.…”

“…Animal models are frequently used for cancer research and anti-cancer drug screening since they can provide essential information on tumor growth and tumor-host interactions within the complex TME [ 35 ]. To investigate the roles of EV-mediated signaling in cancer development, various approaches to track EVs in living animal subjects have been developed [ 36 , 37 ].…”

Surface-Modified Industrial Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene 3D Scaffold Fabrication by Gold Nanoparticle for Drug Screening

“…Unfortunately, the traditional in vitro two-dimensional (2D) cell cultures poorly recapitulate the in vivo environment and have many limitations, including an altered cell morphology, polarity, phenotypes, and division mode in cells, as well as a disturbance of cell-to-cell and cell-to-extracellular environment interactions [6]. Since these models are better suited for understanding the overall effects of an experiment on a living subject [7], these models often make it difficult to understand the drug-specific mode of action [8]. Three-dimensional models such as 3D scaffolds better mimic the in vivo conditions for cell studies, tissue organization, and drug screening applications, by comparison to conventional 2D models.…”