Issue 7, 2021

An in vitro vascularized micro-tumor model of human colorectal cancer recapitulates in vivo responses to standard-of-care therapy

Abstract

Around 95% of anti-cancer drugs that show promise during preclinical study fail to gain FDA-approval for clinical use. This failure of the preclinical pipeline highlights the need for improved, physiologically-relevant in vitro models that can better serve as reliable drug-screening and disease modeling tools. The vascularized micro-tumor (VMT) is a novel three-dimensional model system (tumor-on-a-chip) that recapitulates the complex human tumor microenvironment, including perfused vasculature, within a transparent microfluidic device, allowing real-time study of drug responses and tumor–stromal interactions. Here we have validated this microphysiological system (MPS) platform for the study of colorectal cancer (CRC), the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths, by showing that gene expression, tumor heterogeneity, and treatment responses in the VMT more closely model CRC tumor clinicopathology than current standard drug screening modalities, including 2-dimensional monolayer culture and 3-dimensional spheroids.

Graphical abstract: An in vitro vascularized micro-tumor model of human colorectal cancer recapitulates in vivo responses to standard-of-care therapy

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 dec 2020
Accepted
02 feb 2021
First published
19 feb 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Lab Chip, 2021,21, 1333-1351

An in vitro vascularized micro-tumor model of human colorectal cancer recapitulates in vivo responses to standard-of-care therapy

S. J. Hachey, S. Movsesyan, Q. H. Nguyen, G. Burton-Sojo, A. Tankazyan, J. Wu, T. Hoang, D. Zhao, S. Wang, M. M. Hatch, E. Celaya, S. Gomez, G. T. Chen, R. T. Davis, K. Nee, N. Pervolarakis, D. A. Lawson, K. Kessenbrock, A. P. Lee, J. Lowengrub, M. L. Waterman and C. C. W. Hughes, Lab Chip, 2021, 21, 1333 DOI: 10.1039/D0LC01216E

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