Table 1.
Summary of the advantages and disadvantages of all the techniques cited in the text.
| Model/Technique | Strengths | Weaknesses | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glioma cell lines grown in 2D | Homogeneity of cell populations. | Genotypic and phenotypic variations. | [13,14,15] |
| Commercially available. Suitable for high-throughput drug screening. | Very different growth conditions reported in the literature. | ||
| Do not closely resemble GBM. | |||
| Glioblastoma stem cells (GSC) 2D–3D cultures |
Share features of GBM (resistant to therapeutic treatments, high invasiveness). Grown as adherent cells or neutrospheres. | Must be isolated from fresh human samples. Extensive characterization required. Composed by non-homogenous cell populations. Spheres environment could limit stem cell divisions. | [2,14,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31] |
| Glioma cell lines grown in 3D | Enhanced invasiveness. Increased integrin expression. Expression of stemness markers. |
Not well characterized middle ground between cell lines and GSC. | [32,33,34] |
| Microtubes | Allow imaging analysis. Possibility to study intercellular communication and niche formation. |
Effect of cell spatial arrangement and identification of structural markers critical. | [35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42] |
| hiPSC | Fresh GBM specimen not required. Can be produced in lab by genetic manipulations. |
Genetic manipulations may not reflect genotype of GSC from human samples. Technically complex to obtain. |
[43,44,45,46] |
| Organoids | Resemble the cell heterogeneity of the tumor microenvironment in vivo. Suitable to study the niche microenvironment. Suitable to study cancer cell invasion. Cell populations can be genetically manipulated. |
Organoids composition may vary between different experiments. No standard protocol reported in the literature. Results not easily reproducible. |
[47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55] |
| Organotypic slice cultures | Useful to study infiltration processes. | Mouse brain slices required. | [56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63] |
| Bio printed chip systems | Possibility to build 3D microstructures of various cell patterning in microfluidic devices. | Critical choice of supporting scaffolds composition and bio ink printability. | [64,65,66,67,68,69] |