3D-3-culture: A tool to unveil macrophage plasticity in the tumour microenvironment

Abstract

The tumour microenvironment (TME) shapes disease progression and influences therapeutic response.Most aggressive solid tumours have high levels of myeloid cell infiltration, namely tumour associatedmacrophages (TAM). Recapitulation of the interaction between the different cellular players of the TME,along with the extracellular matrix (ECM), is critical for understanding the mechanisms underlyingdisease progression. This particularly holds true for prediction of therapeutic response(s) to standardtherapies and interrogation of efficacy of TME-targeting agents. In this work, we explored a cultureplatform based on alginate microencapsulation and stirred culture systems to develop the 3D-3-culture,which entails the co-culture of tumour cell spheroids of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), cancerassociatedfibroblasts (CAF) and monocyte