Biomimetic Salivary Gland Cancer Spheroid Platform for In Vitro Recapitulation of Three-Dimensional Tumor-Stromal Interactions.

ABSTRACT: Salivary gland carcinomas (SGCs) are aggressive malignancies with limited treatment options, primarily due to the complexity of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) remodel the extracellular matrix (ECM), enhance cancer cell stemness, and drive drug resistance. This study introduces a decellularized CAF-derived spheroid system as a biomimetic platform to study tumor-stromal interactions in SGC. Multicellular spheroids were generated by co-culturing Medical Research Council cell strain 5 (MRC-5) fibroblasts (fetal lung-derived) with A253 salivary gland cancer cells, producing distinct spatial architecture, with fibroblasts at the core and cancer cells at the periphery. Compared with A253-only spheroids, A253/MRC-5 spheroids exhibited enhanced proliferation

SUBMITTER: Wang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12731055 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature