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Modeling Melanoma in 3D uGel™‐based Artificial Tumor Tissues Demonstrate Initiation, Progression and Metastatic Processes In‐vitro
Author(s) -
Lyden Timothy,
Martin Mike
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.496.16
Subject(s) - melanoma , metastasis , in vivo , in vitro , biology , extracellular matrix , cell culture , tumor progression , cancer research , pathology , primary tumor , cancer , medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics
In a continuing collaboration between our laboratory, the UWRF Tissue and Cellular Innovation Center, and BRTI Lifesciences, LLC we have been evaluating the application of a commercial hydrogel as a matrix for the development and study of several artificial tumor tissues. Here we report on the application of uGel™, a recently developed chitosan/hyaluronate precast matrix to generate 3D melanoma artificial tissues. In this work, we coupled uGel™ matrix with mouse melanoma cell lines B16F10 and B16F1 to generate and study 3D tumor tissues in‐vitro. As we have previously reported with another earlier and related hydrogel, Cell‐Mate™, both of these cells lines successfully produced extensive and long‐lived tumor tissues. In addition, in this series of studies with uGel™ it was possible to model not just the end stages of tumor progression and metastasis, but also the early stages of tumor establishment and local invasion of the matrix in patterns which clearly reflect early tumor development in vivo. As we had seen before, the final stages of tumor development in melanoma includes the generation of two distinct populations of cells, one pigmented and one not. Additionally these two populations also correlate tightly with differential patterns of tissue formation ranging from highly branched and pigmented to completely rounded, smooth and lacking virtually any pigment. Although the branching features are clearly associated with local invasion, our work suggests that the pale, rounded features may actually represent the metastatic stage for these tumors. Interestingly, uGel™ based melanoma developed and progressed to full‐blown tumor masses within a three week period while in our earlier work with Cell‐Mate™ constructs fully developed tumors required from 2–3 months of long‐term culture to reach the same stage. Although the two materials are biochemically identical, they do differ in mechanical properties at the time of loading which may play a role in the significant differences observed in terms of developmental timeline. This study further support our view that small‐scale and long‐term 3D artificial tissues are an effective tool to better understand the biology of cancer and to study it's progression in‐vitro. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .