Hydrogel Microwell Arrays Allow the Assessment of Protease-Associated Enhancement of Cancer Cell Aggregation and Survival.

ABSTRACT: Current routine cell culture techniques are only poorly suited to capture the physiological complexity of tumor microenvironments, wherein tumor cell function is affected by intricate three-dimensional (3D), integrin-dependent cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions. 3D cell cultures allow the investigation of cancer-associated proteases like kallikreins as they degrade ECM proteins and alter integrin signaling, promoting malignant cell behaviors. Here, we employed a hydrogel microwell array platform to probe using a high-throughput mode how ovarian cancer cell aggregates of defined size form and survive in response to the expression of kallikreins and treatment with paclitaxel, by performing microscopic, quantitative image, gene and protein analyses dependent on the var

SUBMITTER: Loessner D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5003461 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature