TY - JOUR

T1 - The cancer angiogenesis co-culture assay

T2 - In vitro quantification of the angiogenic potential of tumoroids

AU - Truelsen, Sarah Line Bring

AU - Mousavi, Nabi

AU - Wei, Haoche

AU - Harvey, Lucy

AU - Stausholm, Rikke

AU - Spillum, Erik

AU - Hagel, Grith

AU - Qvortrup, Klaus

AU - Thastrup, Ole

AU - Harling, Henrik

AU - Mellor, Harry

AU - Thastrup, Jacob

N1 - Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2021 Truelsen et al.

PY - 2021/7

Y1 - 2021/7

N2 - The treatment response to anti-angiogenic agents varies among cancer patients and predictive biomarkers are needed to identify patients with resistant cancer or guide the choice of anti-angiogenic treatment. We present "the Cancer Angiogenesis Co-Culture (CACC) assay", an in vitro Functional Precision Medicine assay which enables the study of tumouroinduced angiogenesis. This assay can quantify the ability of a patient-derived tumouroto induce vascularization by measuring the induction of tube formation in a co-culture of vascular cells and tumoroids established from the primary colorectal tumour or a metastasis. Furthermore, the assay can quantify the sensitivity of patient-derived tumoroids to antiangiogenic therapies. We observed that tube formation increased in a dose-dependent manner upon treatment with the pro-angiogenic factor vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). When investigating the angiogenic potential of tumoroids from 12 patients we found that 9 tumorocultures induced a significant increase in tube formation compared to controls without tumoroids. In these 9 angiogenic tumorocultures the tube formation could be abolished by treatment with one or more of the investigated anti-angiogenic agents. The 3 non-angiogenic tumorocultures secreted VEGF-A but we observed no correlation between the amount of tube formation and tumoroid-secreted VEGF-A. Our data suggests that the CACC assay recapitulates the complexity of tumour angiogenesis, and when clinically verified, could prove a valuable tool to quantify sensitivity towards different anti-angiogenic agents.

AB - The treatment response to anti-angiogenic agents varies among cancer patients and predictive biomarkers are needed to identify patients with resistant cancer or guide the choice of anti-angiogenic treatment. We present "the Cancer Angiogenesis Co-Culture (CACC) assay", an in vitro Functional Precision Medicine assay which enables the study of tumouroinduced angiogenesis. This assay can quantify the ability of a patient-derived tumouroto induce vascularization by measuring the induction of tube formation in a co-culture of vascular cells and tumoroids established from the primary colorectal tumour or a metastasis. Furthermore, the assay can quantify the sensitivity of patient-derived tumoroids to antiangiogenic therapies. We observed that tube formation increased in a dose-dependent manner upon treatment with the pro-angiogenic factor vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). When investigating the angiogenic potential of tumoroids from 12 patients we found that 9 tumorocultures induced a significant increase in tube formation compared to controls without tumoroids. In these 9 angiogenic tumorocultures the tube formation could be abolished by treatment with one or more of the investigated anti-angiogenic agents. The 3 non-angiogenic tumorocultures secreted VEGF-A but we observed no correlation between the amount of tube formation and tumoroid-secreted VEGF-A. Our data suggests that the CACC assay recapitulates the complexity of tumour angiogenesis, and when clinically verified, could prove a valuable tool to quantify sensitivity towards different anti-angiogenic agents.

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0253258

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0253258

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 34234354

AN - SCOPUS:85109482113

VL - 16

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 7 July

M1 - e0253258

ER -