Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Concerns, challenges and promises of high-content analysis of 3D cellular models

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 17, page 606 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

There is intense excitement in the scientific community about 3D cellular model systems because they promise to resemble and recapitulate the in vivo tissue environment more faithfully than 2D systems1. A rapidly expanding offering of commercially available in vitro technologies for high-throughput 3D cell-based disease models, combined with advances in material sciences, are enabling widespread application and adoption of these models across academic and industrial research groups. However, there is a lack of conclusive evidence that such models accurately recapitulate in vivo tissue physiology and disease pathophysiology, and thereby provide sufficiently quantitative and reproducible data to replace current models and improve the clinical success rates of drug candidates. Prominent cellular high-content screening (HCS) and bioimage informatics societies are therefore calling for further debate to discuss the value of these emerging 3D model systems in an effort to establish more transparent and standardized guidelines in the field. Specifically, scientific community representatives highlight the lack of validated methodologies and software tools that enable robust quantitative analysis of the vast number of newer 3D cellular models.

SWOT analysis

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: SWOT analysis of the four major steps in high-content screening using 3D cellular systems.

References

  1. Kingwell, K. 3D cell technologies head to the R&D assembly line. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 16, 6–7 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

P.H. acknowledges support from the LENDULET-BIOMAG Grant (2018-342) and support from the European Regional Development Funds (GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00001, GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00026). F.P. acknowledges support from the NEUBIAS, COST Action (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) CA15124, for a granted short term scientific mission (ref: 41037).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Neil Carragher

  2. Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (IRST) IRCCS, Meldola (FC), Italy

    Filippo Piccinini & Anna Tesei

  3. PerkinElmer, Inc., Waltham, MA, USA

    O. Joseph Trask Jr

  4. Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany

    Marc Bickle

  5. Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary and the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Peter Horvath

Authors
  1. Neil Carragher
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Filippo Piccinini
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Anna Tesei
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. O. Joseph Trask Jr
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Marc Bickle
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Peter Horvath
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter Horvath.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

P.H. is the founder and shareholder of Single-Cell Technologies. J.T. is employed by PerkinElmer. Single-Cell Technologies and PerkinElmer were not directly involved in the writing of the manuscript. This does not alter the author's adherence to all the Nature policies on sharing data and materials.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

A detailed list of SWOT issues (PDF 482 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Carragher, N., Piccinini, F., Tesei, A. et al. Concerns, challenges and promises of high-content analysis of 3D cellular models. Nat Rev Drug Discov 17, 606 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2018.99

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2018.99

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research