Mammary Epithelial and Endothelial Cell Spheroids as a Potential Functional In vitro Model for Breast Cancer Research

Summary

Crosstalk between mammary epithelial cells and endothelial cells importantly contributes to breast cancer progression, tumor growth, and metastasis. In this study, spheroids have been made from breast cancer cells together with vascular and/or lymphatic endothelial cells and demonstrate their applicability as an in vitro system for breast cancer research.

Abstract

Breast cancer is the leading cause of mortality in women. The growth of breast cancer cells and their subsequent metastasis is a key factor for its progression. Although the mechanisms involved in promoting breast cancer growth have been intensively studied using monocultures of breast cancer cells such as MCF-7 cells, the contribution of other cell types, such as vascular and lymphatic endothelial cells that are intimately involved in tumor growth, has not been investigated in depth. Cell-cell interaction plays a key role in tumor growth and progression. Neoangiogenesis, or the development of vessels, is essential for tumor growth, whereas the lymphatic system serves as a portal for cancer cell migration and subsequent metastasis. Recent studies provide evidence that vascular and lymphatic endothelial cells can significantly influence cancer cell growth. These observations imply a need for developing in vitro models that would more realistically reflect breast cancer growth processes in vivo. Moreover, restrictions in animal research require the development of ex vivo models to elucidate better the mechanisms involved.

This article describes the development of breast cancer spheroids composed of both breast cancer cells (estrogen receptor-positive MCF-7 cells) and vascular and/or lymphatic endothelial cells. The protocol describes a detailed step-by-step approach in creating dual-cell spheroids using two different approaches, hanging drop (gold standard and cheap) and 96-well U-bottom plates (expensive). In-depth instructions are provided for how to delicately pick up the formed spheroids to monitor growth by microscopic sizing and assessing viability using dead and live cell staining. Moreover, procedures to fix the spheroids for sectioning and staining with growth-specific antibodies to differentiate growth patterns in spheroids are delineated. Additionally, details for preparing spheroids with transfected cells and methods to extract RNA for molecular analysis are provided. In conclusion, this article provides in-depth instructions for preparing multi-cell spheroids for breast cancer research.

Introduction

The use of animals for experiments has limitations. Animal studies cannot accurately mimic disease progression in humans, and animals and humans do not have identical responses to pathogens. Additionally, restrictions in animal experimentation due to concerns for animal suffering and ethical problems^1,2 increasingly constrain research programs. In vitro systems have been widely developed to circumvent the use of animals; moreover, the use of human cells has made in vitro models more relevant for the pathophysiological and therapeutic investigation. Conventional monolayer (2D) cell cultures ar....

Protocol

1. Cell culture

NOTE: Conduct cell handling under sterile conditions.

1. Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) subculture
   1. Coat 75 cm² flasks with collagen (5 µg/cm²) (rat-tail) overnight (ON) at room temperature (RT) or 2-3 h at 37 °C, rinse with water, and allow the flask to dry.
   2. Grow HUVECs in growth medium (EBM-2, Endothelial Basal Medium-2) supplemented with glutamine (1x = 2 mM), antibiotic-antimycotic solution (AA; 100 µg/mL of streptomycin, 100 µg/mL of penicillin and 0.025 µg/mL of amphotericin B), LSGS (2% v/v FCS, 1 µg/mL of hydrocortison....

Results

The spheroids model using epithelial and endothelial co-cultures is required to closely mimic in vivo conditions of breast tumors for in vitro experiments. The scheme in Figure 1 depicts the protocol to form spheroids with breast cancer epithelial cells and vascular or lymphatic endothelial cells (Figure 1). Each cell type is seeded separately in a 3.5 cm round dish and treated with growth stimulators/inhibitors or transfected with oligonucleot.......

Discussion

Compared to 2D cell cultures, revolutionary 3D spheroid culture technology is a better and more powerful tool to reconstruct an organ's microenvironment, cell-cell interactions, and drug responses in vitro. This is the first protocol describing the formation of spheroids from multicellular (epithelial and endothelial) cell lines for breast cancer research. This protocol ensures spheroidal 3D growth of spheroids for up to 5 days, and spheroids can be examined after paraffin embedding, sectioning, and histolog.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
100 mm × 20 mm tissue-culture treated culture dishes	Corning	CLS430167
149MULTI0C1
35 x 10 mm Tissue Culture Dish	Falcon	353001
5 mL Serological Pipet, Polystyrene, Individually Packed, Sterile	Falcon	357543
Adobe Photoshop			Version: 13.0.1 (64-bit)
Antibiotic Antimycotic Solution (100×)	Sigma-Aldrich	A5955
Calcein-AM	Sigma-Aldrich	17783
CD31 (cluster of differentiation 31)	Cell Marque	131M-95	monoclonal mouse ab clone JC70
CellTracker Green CMFDA (5-chloromethylfluorescein diacetate)	Invitrogen	C7025
CK8/18 (cytokeratins 8 and 18)	DBS	Mob189-05	monoclonal mouse ab, clone 5D3
CKX41 Inverted Microscope	Olympus Life Science		Olympus DP27 digital camera
Cleaved Caspase 3	Cell Signaling	9661L	polyclonal rabbit ab
Collagen (rat tail)	Roche	11 179 179 001
Coulter ISOTON II Diluent	Beckman Coulter	844 80 11	Diluent II
Coulter Z1, Cell Counter	Coulter Electronics, Luton, UK
Dehydrated Culture Media: Noble Agar	BD Difco	BD 214220
Dermal Microvascular Endothelial Neonatal, Pooled Donors (HMVEC-DNeo)	Lonza	CC-2516
Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)	Sigma-Aldrich	D2650
Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium/Nutrient Mixture F-12 Ham	Sigma-Aldrich	D6434
EBM-2 Endothelial Cell Growth Basal Medium-2	Lonza	190860
Ethidium homodimer	Sigma-Aldrich	46043
Fetal Calf Serum (FCS)	Thermo Fisher Scientific	SH30070
Fetal Calf Serum Charcoal Stripped (FCS sf)	Thermo Fisher Scientific	SH3006803
Fluorescence stereo microscopes Leica M205 FA	Leica Microsystems
GlutaMAX Supplement (100x)	Gibco	35050038
HBSS, no calcium, no magnesium, no phenol red	Gibco	14175053
Hoechst 33342	Life Technologies	H3570
HUVEC – Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells	Lonza	CC-2517
ImageJ	National Institute of Health, USA		Wayne Rasband Version: 1.52a (64-bit)
Ki67	Cell Marque	275R-16	monoclonal rabbit ab, clone SP6
Leica fully motorized fluorescence stereo microscope	Leica Microsystems	M205 FA
Leica Histocore Multicut Rotary Microtome		149MULTI0C1
Low Serum Growth Supplement Kit (LSGS Kit)	Gibco	S003K
MCF-7 cells – human breast adenocarcinoma cell line	Clinic for Gynecology, University Hospital Zurich		Provived from Dr Andrè Fedier obtained from ATCC
Nunclon Sphera 96U-well plate	Thermo Fisher Scientific	174925
Paraformaldehyde (PFA)	Sigma-Aldrich	P6148
Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) 1x	Gibco	10010015
Pierce BCA Protein Assay Kit	Thermo Scientific	23225
Protein Lysis Buffer	Cell Signaling, Danvers, USA	9803
Quick-RNA Miniprep Kit	Zymo Research	R1055
RNA Lysis Buffer	Zymo Research	R1060-1-100	Contents in Quick-RNA Miniprep Kit
Rotina 46R Centrifuge	Hettich
Round-Bottom Polystyrene Tubes, 5 mL	Falcon	352003
Sonicator	Bandelin electronics, Berlin, DE
Tecan Infinite series M200 microplate reader	Tecan, Salzburg, AU
Tissue Culture Flasks 75	TPP	90076
Trypsin-EDTA solution	Sigma-Aldrich	T3924