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An improved method for culturing patient-derived colorectal cancer spheroids.

ABSTRACT: Recent advances allowed culturing and examination of patient-derived colorectal cancer (PD-CRC) cells as organoids or spheroids. To be applied to practical personalized medicine, however, current methods still need to be strengthened for higher efficiency. Here we report an improved method to propagate PD-CRC tumor initiating cells (TICs) in spheroid culture. We established > 100 cancer spheroid lines derived from independent colorectal cancer patients employing a serum-containing medium with additional inhibitors, Y27632 and SB431542. Because colorectal cancer spheroids showed wide-range growth rates depending on the patient tumors, we searched for supplementary factors that accelerated proliferation of slow-growing CRC-TIC spheroids. To this end, we introduced a convenient growth-monitoring method using a luciferase reporter. We found that epidermal growth factor (EGF) and/or basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) were critical for steady propagation of a subset of CRC-TIC spheroids carrying the wild-type RAS and RAF genes. We also identified 5'-(N-ethyl-carboxamido)-adenosine (NECA), an adenosine receptor agonist, as an essential supplement for another subset of spheroids. Based on these results, we propose to optimize culture conditions for CRC-TIC spheroids by adjusting to the respective tumor samples. Our method provides a versatile tool that can be applied to personalized chemotherapy evaluation in prospective clinical studies.

SUBMITTER: Miyoshi H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5955161 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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An improved method for culturing patient-derived colorectal cancer spheroids.

Miyoshi Hiroyuki H Maekawa Hisatsugu H Kakizaki Fumihiko F Yamaura Tadayoshi T Kawada Kenji K Sakai Yoshiharu Y Taketo M Mark MM

Oncotarget 20180424 31

Recent advances allowed culturing and examination of patient-derived colorectal cancer (PD-CRC) cells as organoids or spheroids. To be applied to practical personalized medicine, however, current methods still need to be strengthened for higher efficiency. Here we report an improved method to propagate PD-CRC tumor initiating cells (TICs) in spheroid culture. We established > 100 cancer spheroid lines derived from independent colorectal cancer patients employing a serum-containing medium with ad ...[more]

PMID: 29774115

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Project description:We would like to propose a novel parameter that helps predict the chemosensitivity of cancer patients to FGFR inhibitors (FGFRi). Although FGFRi were introduced into the clinical trials on a variety of cancer types, they were found to be particularly efficacious on urothelial cancer and on cholangiocarcinoma for which the FDA had approved several compounds based on clinical studies. The enrollment criteria in such clinical trials were genomic changes in the FGFR genes including amplifications, translocations that caused gene fusions, and point mutations. By scrutinizing the published data on these reports, we have noticed an unresolved issue. Namely, most of these reports showed waterfall plots where tumors of some good fractions of enrolled patients responded well, demonstrating efficacy of the FGFRi. Importantly, however, there were sizable subsets in which tumors did not respond to the FGFRi despite that the patients’ tumors carried the genomic changes that met the enrollment criteria. As already established, both FGFR and EGFR share the downstream signaling pathway of MAPK activation as well as other pathways. Accordingly, it is conceivable that chemotherapeutic inhibition of FGFR alone may leave the MAPK signaling unaffected when the signaling through EGFR is relatively strong. To test this hypothesis, we calculated the FGFR to EGFR mRNA ratio (F/E for short) based on the RNA sequencing data from the Broad Institute Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (https://portals.broadinstitute.org/ccle) of cholangiocarcinoma and urothelial cancer cell lines for which FGFRi chemosensitivity had been published in preclinical studies. Because human FGFR has four paralogs FGFR1–4, we first summed up the expression levels of FGFR1–4 mRNAs by adding the read numbers per MB of FGFR paralogs (sumFGFR). To take EGFR expression into consideration, we then divided this number with that of EGFR; F/E. In six biliary tract cancer cell lines tested, two responsive cell lines had higher F/E ratios of 9.5 and 9.0, whereas four non-responsive lines had substantially lower ratios of 0.1–1.8. In 22 urothelial cancer cell lines, four of the five responsive lines showed F/E of 2.8–4.9, whereas 17 non-responsive lines had 0.01–2.7. To obtain further insights into the F/E ratio, we looked into our patient-derived colorectal cancer (CRC)-stem cell lines. Seven (28%) of 25 RAS/RAF-wild type CRC-stem cell lines responded to the pan-FGFRi erdafitinib singly in culture whereas 21 (84%) did respond to erdafitinib in combination with an EGFR inhibitor (erlotinib). The seven singly responsive cell lines showed relatively high F/E ranging 11–207 with the mean of 46, whereas the 18 non-responsive lines had the ratio of 3.5–37 with the mean at 12. These results suggest that F/E can be a useful biomarker also for colorectal cancer chemosensitivity where EGFR expression level can vary widely. Taken together, F/E is another strong predictor of responses to FGFRi that is as useful as the current genomic criteria that are based on the FGFR genomic changes.

Project description:BackgroundOrganotypic tumor spheroids, a 3D in vitro model derived from patient tumor material, preserve tissue heterogeneity and retain structural tissue elements, thus replicating the in vivo tumor more closely than commonly used 2D and 3D cell line models. Such structures harbour tumorigenic cells, as revealed by xenograft implantation studies in animal models and maintain the genetic makeup of the original tumor material. The aim of our work was a morphological and proteomic characterization of organotypic spheroids derived from colorectal cancer tissue in order to get insight into their composition and associated biology.ResultsMorphological analysis showed that spheroids were of about 250 μm in size and varied in structure, while the spheroid cells differed in shape and size and were tightly packed together by desmosomes and tight junctions. Our proteomic data revealed significant alterations in protein expression in organotypic tumor spheroids cultured as primary explants compared to primary colorectal cancer tissue. Components underlying cellular and tissue architecture were changed; nuclear DNA/ chromatin maintenance systems were up-regulated, whereas various mitochondrial components were down-regulated in spheroids. Most interestingly, the mesenchymal cells appear to be substantial component in such cellular assemblies. Thus the observed changes may partly occur in this cellular compartment. Finally, in the proteomics analysis stem cell-like characteristics were observed within the spheroid cellular assembly, reflected by accumulation of Alcam, Ctnnb1, Aldh1, Gpx2, and CD166. These findings were underlined by IHC analysis of Ctnnb1, CD24 and CD44, therefore warranting closer investigation of the tumorigenic compartment in this 3D culture model for tumor tissue.ConclusionsOur analysis of organotypic CRC tumor spheroids has identified biological processes associated with a mixture of cell types and states, including protein markers for mesenchymal and stem-like cells. This 3D tumor model in which tumor heterogeneity is preserved may represent an advantageous model system to investigate novel therapeutic approaches.

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An improved method for culturing patient-derived colorectal cancer spheroids.

Publications

An improved method for culturing patient-derived colorectal cancer spheroids.

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