Learn about protein 3D structures in 3D cell cultures with spheroid FPOP!

 

Imma just quote the abstract: 

Many cancer drugs fail at treating solid epithelial tumors with hypoxia and insufficient drug penetration thought to be contributing factors to the observed chemoresistance. Owing to this, it is imperative to evaluate potential cancer drugs in conditions as close to in vivo as possible, which is not always done

We've known for years and years and years that cells growing in 2D on a plate have limitations in terms of representation actual biology.

3D cultures also have limitations (and so do animal models and so do human studies) so we do the best we can.

One of the limitations in any 3D culture study I've ever seen is super low N 

SO. What if you use Hummon lab's procedures for creating high numbers of tiny 3D cultures for proteomics for cancer drugs AND Lisa Jones lab's approaches for in cell photo-oxidation of proteins and working out 3D cultures? 

Could you get an understanding of the GLOBAL PROTEIN CONFORMATIONS OF 3D CELL CULTURES TREATED WITH DRUGS en masse? 

Hell yes you could. Check this out! 

They get structural information by FPOP on as many as 635 proteins at a time! They also throw in some pretty MALDI imaging stuff to show how far the FPOP radicals and stuff get into the cells! 

Ridiculously great study from beginning to end.