Optimum 3D Matrix Stiffness for Maintenance of Cancer Stem Cells Is Dependent on Tissue Origin of Cancer Cells (original) (raw)
Fig 3
Dependence of tumorsphere growth on niche size for MDA231 cells.
(A) Procedure for cell encapsulation in the micropatterned gel. CellTracker stained images of MDA231 cells encapsulated in the 5 kPa gel with circular patterns with diameter of 50 (B), 75 (C), 100 (D), 150 (E), and 250 (F) μm after 2 days of incubation (scale bars in B-F are 200 μm). DAPI (blue) and phalloidin (red) stained images of 7 representative tumorspheres formed by the encapsulated cells in (B-F) from different sections of the patterned gels after 14 days of incubation with 50 (G), 75 (H), 100 (I), 150 (J), and 250 (K) μm patterns (scale bars in G-K are 50 μm). Note that the 7 representative tumorspheres in (G-K) are from multiple patterns in the gel sample, not a single pattern, to show size range and shape of tumorspheres for a given pattern size. Cell number (L), average tumorsphere size (M), CD44 expression (N), and ABCG2 expression (O) of the cells in (B-F) with incubation time for 50 (pink), 75 (blue), 100 (red), 150 (green), 250 (brown) μm patterns, and un-patterned gel (purple). Error bars in (L-O) correspond to mean±1 SD for n = 3.