Breast Cancer Patient-Derived Scaffolds Can Expose Unique Individual Cancer Progressing Properties of the Cancer Microenvironment Associated with Clinical Characteristics

• Published in: Cancers Vol. 14; no. 9; p. 2172
• Main Authors: Garre, Elena, Gustafsson, Anna, Leiva, Maria Carmen, Håkansson, Joakim, Ståhlberg, Anders, Kovács, Anikó, Landberg, Göran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 26.04.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: aldehyde; Antibiotics; Breast cancer; Cancer and Oncology; Cancer och onkologi; cancer stem cells; Cancer therapies; Cell culture; cell invasion; dehydrogenase; Drug resistance; epithelial-mesenchymal transition; Estrogen receptors; expression; extracellular-matrix; Gene expression; Malignancy; Mesenchyme; Metastasis; Oncology; patient-derived scaffolds; Patients; Penicillin; phenotype; Pluripotency; Proteins; slug; Sodium; stem; survive; translational research; Tumor cell lines; Tumor microenvironment; Tumors; United States > US; breast cancer; translational research; cancer stem cells; patient-derived scaffolds; tumor microenvironment
• ISSN: 2072-6694; 2072-6694
• DOI: 10.3390/cancers14092172

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease in terms of cellular and structural composition, and besides acquired aggressive properties in the cancer cell population, the surrounding tumor microenvironment can affect disease progression and clinical behaviours. To specifically decode the clinical relevance of the cancer promoting effects of individual tumor microenvironments, we performed a comprehensive test of 110 breast cancer samples using a recently established -like 3D cell culture platform based on patient-derived scaffolds (PDSs). Cell-free PDSs were recellularized with three breast cancer cell lines and adaptation to the different patient-based microenvironments was monitored by quantitative PCR. Substantial variability in gene expression between individual PDS cultures from different patients was observed, as well as between different cell lines. Interestingly, specific gene expression changes in the PDS cultures were significantly linked to prognostic features and clinical information from the original cancer. This link was even more pronounced when ERα-status of cell lines and PDSs matched. The results support that PDSs cultures, including a cancer cell line of relevant origin, can monitor the activity of the tumor microenvironment and reveal unique information about the malignancy-inducing properties of the individual cancer niche and serve as a future complementary diagnostic tool for breast cancer.