Cancer Letters
Cancer Letters
5 years ago

A 3D model of tumour angiogenic microenvironment to monitor hypoxia effects on cell interactions and cancer stem cell selection

Tumour microenvironment determines the fate of treatments. Reconstitution of tumour conditions is mandatory for alternative in vitro methods devoted to cancer development and the selection of therapeutic strategies. This work describes a 3D model of melanoma growth in its environment. Introducing means to mimic tumour angiogenesis, which turns on tumour progression, the model shows that melanoma tumour spheroids allow reconstitution of solid tumours with stromal cells. Angiogenesis evidenced the differential recruitment of endothelial cells (EC) from early progenitors (EEPCs) to mature ECs. Hypoxia was the key parameter that selected and stabilized melanoma cancer stem like cells (CSCs) phenotype based on aldehyde dehydrogenase expression as the best criterion. The 3D-tumour-model demonstrated the distinct reactivity of ECs toward tumour cells in terms of cellular cross-talk and humoral response. Intra-spheroid cell-to-cell membrane dye exchanges, mediated by intercellular interactions, uncovered the melanoma-to-EEPC cooperation. The resulting changes in tumour milieu were evidenced by the chemokinic composition and hypoxia-related variations in microRNA expression assessed in each cellular component of the spheroids. This method brings new tools to decipher the molecular mechanism of tumour-mediated cell recruitment and for in vitro assessment of therapeutic approaches.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0304383517301702

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.