To avoid the indiscriminating action of anticancer drugs, the
cancer cell specific targeting of
drug molecule becomes a preferred choice for the treatment. The successful screening of the
drug molecules in 2D culture system requires further validation. The failure of target specific
drug in animal model raises the issue of creating a platform in between the in vitro (2D) and in vivo animal testing. The metastatic
breast cancer cells migrate and settle at different sites such as bone tissue. This work evaluates the in vitro 3D model of the
breast cancer and bone cells to understand the cellular interactions in the presence of a targeted anticancer drug delivery system. The
silk fibroin based cytocompatible 3D scaffold is used as in vitro 3D distribution model. Human breast
adenocarcinoma and osteoblast like cells are cocultured to evaluate the efficiency of
doxorubicin loaded
folic acid conjugated
silk fibroin nanoparticle as drug delivery system. Decreasing population of the
cancer cells, which lower the levels of
vascular endothelial growth factors,
glucose consumption, and
lactate production are observed in the
drug treated coculture constructs. The
drug treated constructs do not show any major impact on bone mineralization. The diminished expression of osteogenic markers such as osteocalcein and
alkaline phosphatase are recorded. The result indicates that this type of
silk based 3D in vitro coculture model may be utilized as a bridge between the traditional 2D and animal model system to evaluate the new
drug molecule (s) or to reassay the known
drug molecules or to develop target specific
drug in
cancer research.