Evaluation of Breast Cancer Migration in Hydrogel Models

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Date

2020-05

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The Ohio State University

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Abstract

Each year, it is expected that over 250,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer and over 40,000 women will die from the disease. In some cases, breast cancer cells metastasize and form secondary tumors in other organs, such as the liver, the lungs, bones, and the brain, causing a significant decline in survival rates. It is not well understood why breast cancer cells behave differently from organ to organ. The goal of this study is to develop an understanding of breast cancer behavior in the brain environment by studying breast cancer cell lines in models mimicking the breast and brain tissue. In this study, 2 breast cancer cell lines and one normal mammary cell line were studied either on the surface of or encapsulated in collagen-hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel composites. The breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231 and MCF7 were under investigation, along with MCF10a, a healthy breast epithelial cell line, as a control. Collagen-I/III and HA were chosen because of their respective abundance in the breast and brain. Migration and morphology patterns were analyzed to characterize differences between cell lines and hydrogel compositions. Results of this study revealed that migration of MDA-MB-231 cells was not hindered by the addition of HA, whereas migration of MCF-7 cells declined significantly with the addition of HA. This study reveals that these hydrogel models can provide viable methods to further investigate the migration patterns of invasive cancer cell cultures.

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Breast cancer, Hydrogel, MDA-MB-231, Cell migration, Cell morphology, MCF7

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