Hydrogel Formulations That Induce Dormancy in Breast Cancer Cells
TechnologyDescription:Dr. Slater’s lab at the University of Delaware has developeda hydrogel formulation that allow long-term culture of cancer cells duringwhich the cells can be maintained in a dormant or quiescent state or in anactively proliferating state. The process is facile, easily replicable, andamenable to high-throughput assays, for both assessment of cellularcharacteristics and drug validation.Background &Applications:Metastasis isresponsible for 90% of cancer-associated mortality. Metastasized cells oftenlay in a dormant state for years, or even decades, before reverting to anactively proliferating state to form secondary tumors. Current cancertreatments do not treat dormant cells. Accordingly, there is much interest indeveloping therapeutics that treat dormant cancer cells but inducing dormancyand monitoring dormant cells in animal models in currently impossible. Toovercome this problem, we developed a tissue-engineered, in vitro platformthat allows us to induce both dormant and proliferative states in highlymetastatic breast cancer cells via tuning of the matrix properties. We envisiontwo main applications of this platform:· Screening the efficacy of new therapeutics on treatmentof dormant cancer cells. · Development of new therapeutic targets to treat dormantcells.ProblemsAddressed:Most current invitro models of breast cancer recapitulate the metastatic and aggressivebehavior of cancer cells but not the dormant state associated with metastases.Current chemotherapeutics are effective in treating proliferating cells but donot dormant cells. Methods to induce a desired state (proliferative or dormant)in cancer cells still lacking. In the absence of such models, molecularcharacterization of dormant tumor cells is also challenging. This platformfacilitates discovery of both novel targets specific to dormant cancer cellsand validation of potential drug candidates against identified targets forfuture translation.
United States
Patent Pending
美国
