A Biomiraetic Hydrogel System to Study Tumor Angiogenesis

摘要

The increased VEGF production from 344SQ after EMT induction supports the notion that these cells are pro-angiogenic, making them interesting to study in a tumor angiogenesis model. Furthermore, when brought into contact, cells of the vasculature have an affinity for interacting with cancer cells in a biomimetic PEG matrix. Thus, this tumor angiogenesis model serves as a platform with which the vessel recruitment capacity of cancer cells of varying metastatic capacities can be assessed. Future work includes treating the cells of the dual gel with TGF-β1 and evaluating changes in their interactions. Ongoing work also includes incorporating different adenocarcinoma model cell lines into the model in order to further elucidate the role of angiogenesis as a pre-malignant process.