A Biomimetic Microfluidic Tumor Microenvironment Platform Mimicking the EPR Effect for Rapid Screening of Drug Delivery Systems

Real-time monitoring of tumor drug delivery in vivo is a daunting challenge due to the heterogeneity and complexity of the tumor microenvironment. In this study, we developed a biomimetic microfluidic tumor microenvironment (bMTM) comprising co-culture of tumor and endothelial cells in a 3D environment. The platform consists of a vascular compartment featuring a network of vessels cultured with endothelial cells forming a complete lumen under shear flow in communication with 3D solid tumors cultured in a tumor compartment. Endothelial cell permeability to both small dye molecules and large liposomal drug carriers were quantified using fluorescence microscopy. Endothelial cell intercellular junction formation was characterized by immunostaining. Endothelial cell permeability significantly increased in the presence of either tumor cell conditioned media (TCM) or tumor cells. The magnitude of this increase in permeability was significantly higher in the presence of metastatic breast tumor cells as compared to non-metastatic ones. Immunostaining revealed impaired endothelial cell-cell junctions in the presence of either metastatic TCM or metastatic tumor cells. Our findings indicate that the bMTM platform mimics the tumor microenvironment including the EPR effect. This platform has a significant potential in applications such as cell-cell/cell-drug carrier interaction studies and rapid screening of cancer drug therapeutics/carriers.