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Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture

BACKGROUND: The cancer microenvironment has a strong impact on the growth and dynamics of cancer cells. Conventional 2D culture systems, however, do not reflect in vivo conditions, impeding detailed studies of cancer cell dynamics. This work aims to establish a method to reveal the interaction of ca...

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Autores principales: Ivers, Laura P, Cummings, Brendan, Owolabi, Funke, Welzel, Katarzyna, Klinger, Rut, Saitoh, Sayaka, O’Connor, Darran, Fujita, Yasuyuki, Scholz, Dimitri, Itasaki, Nobue
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221723/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25379014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12935-014-0108-6
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author Ivers, Laura P
Cummings, Brendan
Owolabi, Funke
Welzel, Katarzyna
Klinger, Rut
Saitoh, Sayaka
O’Connor, Darran
Fujita, Yasuyuki
Scholz, Dimitri
Itasaki, Nobue
author_facet Ivers, Laura P
Cummings, Brendan
Owolabi, Funke
Welzel, Katarzyna
Klinger, Rut
Saitoh, Sayaka
O’Connor, Darran
Fujita, Yasuyuki
Scholz, Dimitri
Itasaki, Nobue
author_sort Ivers, Laura P
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The cancer microenvironment has a strong impact on the growth and dynamics of cancer cells. Conventional 2D culture systems, however, do not reflect in vivo conditions, impeding detailed studies of cancer cell dynamics. This work aims to establish a method to reveal the interaction of cancer and normal epithelial cells using 3D time-lapse. METHODS: GFP-labelled breast cancer cells, MDA-MB-231, were co-cultured with mCherry-labelled non-cancerous epithelial cells, MDCK, in a gel matrix. In the 3D culture, the epithelial cells establish a spherical morphology (epithelial sphere) thus providing cancer cells with accessibility to the basal surface of epithelia, similar to the in vivo condition. Cell movement was monitored using time-lapse analyses. Ultrastructural, immunocytochemical and protein expression analyses were also performed following the time-lapse study. RESULTS: In contrast to the 2D culture system, whereby most MDA-MB-231 cells exhibit spindle-shaped morphology as single cells, in the 3D culture the MDA-MB-231 cells were found to be single cells or else formed aggregates, both of which were motile. The single MDA-MB-231 cells exhibited both round and spindle shapes, with dynamic changes from one shape to the other, visible within a matter of hours. When co-cultured with epithelial cells, the MDA-MB-231 cells displayed a strong attraction to the epithelial spheres, and proceeded to surround and engulf the epithelial cell mass. The surrounded epithelial cells were eventually destroyed, becoming debris, and were taken into the MDA-MB-231 cells. However, when there was a relatively large population of normal epithelial cells, the MDA-MB-231 cells did not engulf the epithelial spheres effectively, despite repeated contacts. MDA-MB-231 cells co-cultured with a large number of normal epithelial cells showed reduced expression of monocarboxylate transporter-1, suggesting a change in the cell metabolism. A decreased level of gelatin-digesting ability as well as reduced production of matrix metaroproteinase-2 was also observed. CONCLUSIONS: This culture method is a powerful technique to investigate cancer cell dynamics and cellular changes in response to the microenvironment. The method can be useful for various aspects such as; different combinations of cancer and non-cancer cell types, addressing the organ-specific affinity of cancer cells to host cells, and monitoring the cellular response to anti-cancer drugs. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12935-014-0108-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-42217232014-11-07 Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture Ivers, Laura P Cummings, Brendan Owolabi, Funke Welzel, Katarzyna Klinger, Rut Saitoh, Sayaka O’Connor, Darran Fujita, Yasuyuki Scholz, Dimitri Itasaki, Nobue Cancer Cell Int Primary Research BACKGROUND: The cancer microenvironment has a strong impact on the growth and dynamics of cancer cells. Conventional 2D culture systems, however, do not reflect in vivo conditions, impeding detailed studies of cancer cell dynamics. This work aims to establish a method to reveal the interaction of cancer and normal epithelial cells using 3D time-lapse. METHODS: GFP-labelled breast cancer cells, MDA-MB-231, were co-cultured with mCherry-labelled non-cancerous epithelial cells, MDCK, in a gel matrix. In the 3D culture, the epithelial cells establish a spherical morphology (epithelial sphere) thus providing cancer cells with accessibility to the basal surface of epithelia, similar to the in vivo condition. Cell movement was monitored using time-lapse analyses. Ultrastructural, immunocytochemical and protein expression analyses were also performed following the time-lapse study. RESULTS: In contrast to the 2D culture system, whereby most MDA-MB-231 cells exhibit spindle-shaped morphology as single cells, in the 3D culture the MDA-MB-231 cells were found to be single cells or else formed aggregates, both of which were motile. The single MDA-MB-231 cells exhibited both round and spindle shapes, with dynamic changes from one shape to the other, visible within a matter of hours. When co-cultured with epithelial cells, the MDA-MB-231 cells displayed a strong attraction to the epithelial spheres, and proceeded to surround and engulf the epithelial cell mass. The surrounded epithelial cells were eventually destroyed, becoming debris, and were taken into the MDA-MB-231 cells. However, when there was a relatively large population of normal epithelial cells, the MDA-MB-231 cells did not engulf the epithelial spheres effectively, despite repeated contacts. MDA-MB-231 cells co-cultured with a large number of normal epithelial cells showed reduced expression of monocarboxylate transporter-1, suggesting a change in the cell metabolism. A decreased level of gelatin-digesting ability as well as reduced production of matrix metaroproteinase-2 was also observed. CONCLUSIONS: This culture method is a powerful technique to investigate cancer cell dynamics and cellular changes in response to the microenvironment. The method can be useful for various aspects such as; different combinations of cancer and non-cancer cell types, addressing the organ-specific affinity of cancer cells to host cells, and monitoring the cellular response to anti-cancer drugs. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12935-014-0108-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2014-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC4221723/ /pubmed/25379014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12935-014-0108-6 Text en © Ivers et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Primary Research
Ivers, Laura P
Cummings, Brendan
Owolabi, Funke
Welzel, Katarzyna
Klinger, Rut
Saitoh, Sayaka
O’Connor, Darran
Fujita, Yasuyuki
Scholz, Dimitri
Itasaki, Nobue
Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture
title Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture
title_full Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture
title_fullStr Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture
title_full_unstemmed Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture
title_short Dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3D culture
title_sort dynamic and influential interaction of cancer cells with normal epithelial cells in 3d culture
topic Primary Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221723/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25379014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12935-014-0108-6
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