New Experimental Model for Studying Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is an insidious disease, with more than 245,000 new cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2016. The complex disease advances from the cells lining the mammary ducts to ultimately invading the bloodstream, spreading cancer throughout the body.

Devadas et al. introduce a new experimental model to more accurately mimic the microenvironment of these cells, allowing scientists to study the physiological behavior of the cells.

“Cancer research still relies heavily on experiments that are performed in two-dimensional cell cultures,” said author Edmond Young. “However, these models do not resemble real three-dimensional tissues in the body.”

The researchers designed and developed a new experimental device to capture three-dimensional tissue structure in the lab. This new approach was developed to model the key microenvironment in which cells of the mammary gland interact.

The new device allows the growth of different cell types in parallel and in three-dimensional tubular structures, so that researchers can study cell ‘cross-talk’ and migration in a more realistic way. The results were corroborated by numerical modeling of chemical gradients, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is known to trigger cell migratory behavior.

Young believes this new technique will help researchers advance breast cancer research toward more effective diagnostics and treatments.

The researchers are currently working on adapting this method to study pancreatic cancer, a disease whose tumor glands and neighboring small arterioles are both luminal in shape and well-suited for this approach.

Source: “A microfluidic mammary gland coculture model using parallel 3D lumens for studying epithelial-endothelial migration in breast cancer,” by Deepika Devadas, Thomas A. Moore, Noosheen Walji, and Edmond W. K. Young, Biomicrofluidics (2019). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5123912 .