Cellular Analysis Of 3D Spheroid-Based Tumor Invasion Assays

Metastasis is the main cause of death in cancer patients and one of the most complex biological processes in human diseases (Hanahan et al., 2011). The development of therapies designed to forestall the metastatic activity of tumors has been met with multiple challenges. The first being the initial focus on single target remedies. As many types of cancers develop multiple mutations during tumor progression (Wood et al., 2007), individual cancers are often little affected by this type of drug. The advancement of novel methods that allow for the discernment of the effect a potential therapy has on the invasive phenotype of a particular type of cancer has proven invaluable to circumventing these early failures.

A second hurdle is the choice of an appropriate cell model. Tumors in vivo exist as a three-dimensional (3D) mass of multiple cell types, including cancer and stromal cells (Mao et al., 2013). Here we demonstrate a method for the generation of 3D spheroidal tumoroid structures, creation of a suitable invasion matrix, image-based monitoring of tumor invasion, and cellular analysis of captured images.