Speaker
Description
Epithelial and stromal communications are essential for normal uterine
functions and their dysregulation contributes to the pathogenesis of many
diseases including infertility, endometriosis, and cancer. Although many
studies have highlighted the advantages of culturing cells in 3D compared to
the conventional 2D culture system, one of the major limitations of these
systems is the lack of incorporation of cells from non-epithelial lineages. In an
effort to develop a culture system incorporating both stromal and epithelial
cells, 3D endometrial cancer spheroids are developed by co-culturing
endometrial stromal cells with cancerous epithelial cells. The spheroids
developed by this method are phenotypically comparable to in vivo
endometrial cancer tissue. Proteomic analysis of the co-culture spheroids
comparable to human endometrial tissue revealed 591 common proteins and
canonical pathways that are closely related to endometrium biology. To
determine the feasibility of using this model for drug screening, the efficacy of
tamoxifen and everolimus is tested. In summary, a unique 3D model system
of human endometrial cancer is developed that will serve as the foundation
for the further development of 3D culture systems incorporating different cell
types of the human uterus for deciphering the contributions of non-epithelial
cells present in cancer microenvironment.
