Background: An impressive percentage of biomedical advances were achieved through animal research and cell culture investigations. For drug testing and disease researches, both animal models and preclinical trials with cell cultures are extremely important, but present some limitations, such as ethical concern and inability of representing complex tissues and organs. 3D cell cultures arise providing a more realistic in vitro representation of tissues and organs. Environment and cell type in 3D cultures can represent in vivo conditions and thus provide accurate data on cell-to-cell interactions, and cultivation techniques are based on a scaffold, usually hydrogel or another polymeric material, or without scaffold, such as suspended microplates, magnetic levitation, and microplates for spheroids with ultra-low fixation coating.
Purpose and scope: This review aims at presenting an updated summary of the most common 3D cell culture models available, as well as a historical background of their establishment and possible applications.
Summary: Even though 3D culturing is incapable of replacing other current research types, they will continue to substitute some unnecessary animal experimentation, as well as complement monolayer cultures.
Conclusion: In this aspect, 3D culture emerges as a valuable alternative to the investigation of functional, biochemical, and molecular aspects of human pathologies.
Keywords: 3D culture models; cell culture; organoids; spheroids; tissue engineering.
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