Patient-derived bladder cancer organoids show stable transcript expression along cultivation

Bladder cancer (BC) is a prevalent malignancy with high recurrence rates. Patient-derived bladder cancer organoids (BCO) pose as a promising approach in both, disease modeling and individualized treatment screening. The aim of this study was to investigate the transcriptomic plasticity in BCOs as a function of cultivation times to define ideal time periods for the applications envisioned.

Tumor samples of three patients with pathologically confirmed non-muscle invasive and muscle-invasive bladder cancer were included in this study and expanded as BCOs. RNA expression was investigated at different time periods of cells in culture using differential gene expression for overall transcript expression and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) for pathological relevant markers.

Differential gene expression of the BCO lines was investigated across passages 1–4, in passages 5–9 and above 9, respectively. Analysis of the entire transcriptome of the respective BCO lines revealed consistent profiles without significant alterations throughout the cultivation and expansion procedure. Notably, key transcripts like TP53, PIK3CA, BRCA1, among others, exhibited stable expression levels in the quantitative RNA analysis during the cultivation period.

The robust transcriptome during BCO cultivation advocates for the use of earlier passages of BCOs in personalized medicine providing a time-efficient drug screening option to accelerate the counseling of patients’ treatment options. Higher passages of BCOs still hold the potential in topics demanding for expanded cell masses such as medical device development and others.