Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>Metastasis is responsible for over 90% of cancer related deaths. While significant advances in visualizing metastasis have been made in vivo, the details of the biological and physical processes that govern invasion and intravasation remain poorly understood. The difficulty in studying metastasis stems from the complexity of the interface where invasion and intravasation take place, between the tumor's local tissue microenvironment and the vascular system. To elucidate the mechanistic events taking place during invasion and intravasation, we have developed a platform that positions tumor cells adjacent to an artificial vessel embedded in an extracellular matrix (ECM). Using live-cell, fluorescence microscopy, we study the complex interplay between highly metastatic cancer cells and a functional artificial microvessel lined with endothelial cells during tumor migration and intravasation. We hypothesize that an engineered platform that recapitulates the interactions between a tumor and a physiologically relevant artificial vessel within an extracellular matrix will allow the systematic study of the physical and biological properties that regulate invasion and intravasastion. Since there remain many gaps in our understanding of the biology and physics of invasion and intravasation, further insight into these poorly understood processes may provide new strategies to prevent the spread of cancer and reduce the high mortality rates associated with metastasis.</jats:p>
<jats:p>Citation Format: Andrew D. Wong, Peter C. Searson. A platform to study metastatic cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2827. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-2827</jats:p>