- Shen, Keyue;
- Luk, Samantha;
- Hicks, Daniel F;
- Elman, Jessica S;
- Bohr, Stefan;
- Iwamoto, Yoshiko;
- Murray, Ryan;
- Pena, Kristen;
- Wang, Fangjing;
- Seker, Erkin;
- Weissleder, Ralph;
- Yarmush, Martin L;
- Toner, Mehmet;
- Sgroi, Dennis;
- Parekkadan, Biju
Tumour-stromal interactions are a determining factor in cancer progression. In vivo, the interaction interface is associated with spatially resolved distributions of cancer and stromal phenotypes. Here, we establish a micropatterned tumour-stromal assay (μTSA) with laser capture microdissection to control the location of co-cultured cells and analyse bulk and interfacial tumour-stromal signalling in driving cancer progression. μTSA reveals a spatial distribution of phenotypes in concordance with human oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer samples, and heterogeneous drug activity relative to the tumour-stroma interface. Specifically, an unknown mechanism of reversine is shown in targeting tumour-stromal interfacial interactions using ER+ MCF-7 breast cancer and bone marrow-derived stromal cells. Reversine suppresses MCF-7 tumour growth and bone metastasis in vivo by reducing tumour stromalization including collagen deposition and recruitment of activated stromal cells. This study advocates μTSA as a platform for studying tumour microenvironmental interactions and cancer field effects with applications in drug discovery and development.