A liver microphysiological system of tumor cell dormancy and inflammatory responsiveness is affected by scaffold properties.

ABSTRACT: Distant metastasis is the major cause of breast cancer-related mortality, commonly emerging clinically after 5 or more years of seeming 'cure' of the primary tumor, indicating a quiescent dormancy. The lack of relevant accessible model systems for metastasis that recreate this latent stage has hindered our understanding of the molecular basis and the development of therapies against these lethal outgrowths. We previously reported on the development of an all-human 3D ex vivo hepatic microphysiological system that reproduces several features of liver physiology and enables spontaneous dormancy in a subpopulation of breast cancer cells. However, we observed that the dormant cells were localized primarily within the 3D tissue, while the proliferative cells were in contact with the polystyrene

SUBMITTER: Clark AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5242229 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature