Speaker
Description
Cancer invasion, an indicator of deadly metastasis, is governed by complex tumor microenvironment (TME) interactions, including ECM stiffness. Understanding invasion dynamics is essential for developing effective therapies. In this study, we investigated how ECM stiffness and cellular composition affect cancer invasion using 3D spheroid models. Our results demonstrate that spheroid invasion varied significantly with substrate stiffness and spheroid cellular constituents. Notably, mixed cancer-fibroblast spheroids exhibited enhanced invasion kinetics, particularly on substrates mimicking soft tissue. Furthermore, we found that dynamic signals captured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) strongly correlated with invasion activity. This suggests OCT is a promising tool for non-invasive, real-time assessment of tumor invasion. Overall, this work highlights the critical interplay between cellular composition and matrix mechanics, offering a quantitative platform for evaluating anti-invasion therapies in physiologically relevant models.
