Reprogramming of cancer cells to hepatocytes
2023
Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, USA
Lineage reprogramming is a technique to convert a functional cell type from one lineage to another lineage without passing through an intermediate pluripotent stage.
In this study, lineage conversion is performed for human breast cancer cells. Therefore, six transcriptional factors were introduced into lentiviral vectors and transduced into breast cancer cells. As a result, human induced hepatocyte-like cells (hiHeps) with hepatic phenotypes were obtained. Single cell sequencing was used to investigate the cells after reprogramming.
Moreover, a liver-on-a-chip (LOC) model was developed by 3D bioprinting of hepatocyte extracellular vesicles onto the microfluidic chip to assess the metastasis behaviour of the reprogrammed breast cancer cells. It was shown that the used transcription factors could reprogram the tumor cells into hiHeps, and thereby inhibit the metastasis of these cells.
It was shown that the LOC model could imitate the 3D liver microenvironment and be used to assess the behaviour of reprogrammed cancer cells as a potential treatment of metastatic cancers.
Detection of lineage-reprogramming efficiency of tumor cells in a 3D-printed liver-on-a-chip model
Baisong Lu, Anthony Atala, Weixin Zhao
Added on: 12-02-2023
[1] https://www.thno.org/v13p4905.htm
