Transparent minispheres reveal that some look-alike cancer drugs part ways in 3D

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Researchers at Uppsala University adapted the Cell Painting imaging method to examine individual cells inside three-dimensional cancer-cell clusters. They found that two drugs with similar effects in flat cultures behaved differently in 3D, linking the difference to activation of the p53 stress response.

Researchers at Uppsala University have adapted Cell Painting, a widely used imaging method in drug discovery, to look at individual cells inside small 3D clusters of cancer cells. Two drugs that looked almost identical in ordinary flat cell cultures behaved differently in 3D, and the team linked the difference to how each drug switches on the cell's p53 stress response.