Oral cancer is a common and deadly kind of tissue invasion, has a high death rate, and may induce metastasis that mostly affects adults over the age of 40. Most in vitro traditional methods for studying cancer have included the use of monolayer cell cultures and several animal models. There is a worldwide effort underway to reduce the excessive use of laboratory animals since, although being physiologically adequate, animal models rarely succeed in exactly mimicking human models. 3D culture models have gained great attention in the area of biomedicine because of their capacity to replicate parent tissue. There are many benefits to using a drug delivery approach based on nanoparticles in cancer treatment. Because of this, in vitro test methodologies are crucial for evaluating the efficacy of prospective novel nanoparticle drug delivery systems. This review discusses current advances in the utility of 3D cell culture models including multicellular spheroids, patient-derived explant cultures, organoids, xenografts, 3D bioprinting, and organoid-on-a-chip models. Aspects of nanoparticle-based drug discovery that have utilized 2D and 3D cultures for a better understanding of genes implicated in oral cancers are also included in this review.
Keywords: 3D culture models; gene expression; nanotechnology; oral cancer; tumor microenvironment.
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