Microfluidic tumor-on-chip for breast cancer bone metastasis
2018
Columbia University, New York, USA(1)
Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy(2)
Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy(2)
Bone metastasis is a very common feature of breast cancer progression. It has been shown that tumor cells circulate in the vasculature and can colonize perivascular areas where they form niches that are regulated by neighbour cells. However, the mechanisms driving these interactions are poorly understood. Here, a combination of human endothelial cells, mesenchymal stem cells and breast cancer cells is cultured on a 3D native bone matrix in a microfluidic chip with stable vascular networks to investigate the interplay between these cell types in a 3D microenvironment. The results show that the control of the physicochemical cues of the niche-on-a-chip could regulate the assembling of the vascular network. Moreover, perivascular mesenchymal stem cells supported processes related to angiogenesis. In these niches, breast cancer cells persisted in a slow-proliferative state related to increased resistance to sunitinib treatment. In this study, the researchers develop a model which allows the modulation of physiochemical cues to regulate cancer cell behaviour and could potentially help to elucidate metastasis mechanisms of colonization and drug resistance.
Human bone perivascular niche-on-a-chip for studying metastatic colonization
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic(1), Manuela Teresa Raimondi(2)
Added on: 10-08-2021
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/6/1256[2] https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset/ffebe454-ed9a-47cf-8a33-8cf70c1b7d38
