The Ability to Deal with Metabolic Stress Correlates with Cell Proliferation Rates under 2D or 3D Cell Culture System

Different cancer cell lines display altered-either decreased or increased-proliferation rates when cultivated as 3D tumor spheroids. The presented work aimed to study the interplay between cell proliferation rates and metabolic stress in 2D and 3D cell culture systems. Two cell line models (HepG2; liver cancer cell line and HCT-116; colorectal cancer cell line) were selected that showed inverse proliferation trends under 2D and 3D cell culture systems: HCT-116 displays decreased, while HepG2 displays increased proliferation rates under 3D system. The presented data indicated that the proliferative capacity of the given cell line was associated with its ability to deal with metabolic stress under 2D or 3D system. HCT-116 cells coped better with metabolic stress in 2D system while HepG2 in 3D system.