Abstract 234: Microfluidic chip for drug response studies in non-small cell lung carcinoma patient-derived organoids

Abstract Background. Organoids have been widely accepted as 3D tumor models for patient-specific drug response. However, research involving non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) organoids is hampered by the lack of appropriate platforms. Although dome cultures show promising results, the relatively large size variability of patient-derived organoids (PDOs) hinders their application in drug response studies. Here, we report a microfluidic chip for maintaining high uniformity and requiring miniscule sample volume for PDO drug screening. Methods. The microfluidic chip includes a bottom microwell layer and a top microchannel layer. Each chip has 5 channels for parallel treatment conditions, with 30 U-shaped microwells (400μm dia x 250μm deep) per channel. PDOs were loaded from side channels and trapped by filters adjacent to microwells. NSCLC PDOs F231/F671 (NCI PDMR) were cultured and treated by KRASG12C inhibitor adagrasib (0-2000nM, 72h). PDO drug response was assessed via viability using fluorescent dyes. Results. On-chip PDO size after one-week incubation exhibited the coefficient of variation (CV) of 28% for F231 and 36% for F671, which was notably lower than measurements obtained using Matrigel dome (126%, n=3) and low attachment plate (80%, n=4). The F231/F671 showed viability 81% after 1wk (n=20). On-chip cytotoxicity results showed that both KRASG12C PDOs exhibited sensitivity to adagrasib, matching the clinical response, with IC50 values of 830 nM (F231) and 1324nM (F671). When cultured with fibroblast (WI-38) supernatant, the cytotoxic effect was mitigated due to the fibroblast-induced resistance, with IC50 increasing ≥2 ×. No statistical difference was observed for the fibroblast effect in the open-format microwells and our microfluidic chip (69. 6±16. 9% to 80. 2±9. 0% vs. 69. 0±12. 2% to 82. 2±4. 1%, respectively, following 500nM adagrasib for 72h), further underscoring the reliability of our chip for PDOs’ drug response studies. Application of continuous perfusion at 70nL/min yielded no statistical difference in viability from static conditions. Conclusions. Our microfluidic chip offers uniform PDO growth with perfusion allowing drug screening in almost real time. The on-chip response to adagrasib was clinically relevant. Resistance due to tumor microenvironment (TME) can be readily assessed using fibroblast supernatant, and could be expanded to other TME components in future studies to investigate their impact on treatment resistance. Citation Format: Qiyue Luan, Ines Pulido, Angelique Isagirre, Jian Zhou, Takeshi Shimamura, Ian Papautsky. Microfluidic chip for drug response studies in non-small cell lung carcinoma patient-derived organoids abstract. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts) ; 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84 (6Suppl): Abstract nr 234.