A bioengineered heterotypic stroma–cancer microenvironment model to study pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma†
Abstract
Interactions between neoplastic epithelial cells and components of a reactive stroma in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are of key significance behind the disease's dismal prognosis. Despite extensive published research in the importance of stroma–cancer interactions in other cancers and experimental evidence supporting the importance of the microenvironment in PDAC progression, a reproducible three-dimensional (3D) in vitro model for exploring stroma–cancer interplay and evaluating therapeutics in a physiologically relevant context has been lacking. We introduce a humanized microfluidic model of the PDAC microenvironment incorporating multicellularity, extracellular