Spheroids
Spheroids are multi-cellular 3D structures that mimic in vivo cell responses and interactions. They can be highly reproducible and to be scaled for high-content screening. Compared with adherent cells grown in 2D monolayers, 3D growth conditions are believed to more closely reflect the natural environment of cancer cells. Acquiring measurements from these larger structures involve acquiring images from different depths (z-planes) within the body of the spheroid and analyzing them in 3D, or collapsing the images into a single 2D stack before analysis.