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University of Massachusetts Amherst

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

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Breast cancer

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Biomechanical Microenvironment Regulates Fusogenicity Of Breast Cancer Cells, Peiran Zhu, Ning-Hsuan Tseng, Tianfa Xie, Ningwei Li, Isaac Fitts-Sprague, Shelly Peyton, Yubing Sun Jan 2019

Biomechanical Microenvironment Regulates Fusogenicity Of Breast Cancer Cells, Peiran Zhu, Ning-Hsuan Tseng, Tianfa Xie, Ningwei Li, Isaac Fitts-Sprague, Shelly Peyton, Yubing Sun

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

Fusion of cancer cells is thought to contribute to tumor development and drug resistance. The low frequency of cell fusion events and the instability of fused cells have hindered our ability to understand the molecular mechanisms that govern cell fusion. We have demonstrated that several breast cancer cell lines can fuse into multinucleated giant cells in vitro, and the initiation and longevity of fused cells can be regulated solely by biophysical factors. Dynamically tuning the adhesive area of the patterned substrates, reducing cytoskeletal tensions pharmacologically, altering matrix stiffness, and modulating pattern curvature all supported the spontaneous fusion and stability of …


2d Or 3d? How Cell Motility Measurements Are Conserved Across Dimensions In Vitro And Translate In Vivo, Sualyneth Galarza, Hyuna Kim, Naciye Atay, Jenifer Munson, Shelly Peyton Jan 2019

2d Or 3d? How Cell Motility Measurements Are Conserved Across Dimensions In Vitro And Translate In Vivo, Sualyneth Galarza, Hyuna Kim, Naciye Atay, Jenifer Munson, Shelly Peyton

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

Cell motility is a critical aspect of several processes such as wound healing and immunity; however, it is dysregulated in cancer. Current limitations of imaging tools make it difficult to study cell migration in vivo. To overcome this, and to identify drivers from the microenvironment that regulate cell migration, bioengineers have developed 2D and 3D tissue model systems in which to study cell motility in vitro, with the aim of mimicking elements of the environments in which cells move in vivo. However, there has been no systematic study to explicitly relate and compare cell motility measurements between …


Complementary, Semi-Automated Methods For Creating Multi-Dimensional, Peg-Based Biomaterials, Elizabeth A. Brooks, Lauren E. Jansen, Maria F. Gencoglu, Annali M. Yurkevicz, Shelly Peyton Jan 2018

Complementary, Semi-Automated Methods For Creating Multi-Dimensional, Peg-Based Biomaterials, Elizabeth A. Brooks, Lauren E. Jansen, Maria F. Gencoglu, Annali M. Yurkevicz, Shelly Peyton

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

Tunable biomaterials that mimic selected features of the extracellular matrix (ECM), such as its stiffness, protein composition, and dimensionality, are increasingly popular for studying how cells sense and respond to ECM cues. In the field, there exists a significant trade-off for how complex and how well these biomaterials represent the in vivo microenvironment, versus how easy they are to make and how adaptable they are to automated fabrication techniques. To address this need to integrate more complex biomaterials design with high-throughput screening approaches, we present several methods to fabricate synthetic biomaterials in 96-well plates and demonstrate that they can be …


Comparative Study Of Multicellular Tumor Spheroid Formation Methods And Implications For Drug Screening, Maria F. Gencoglu, Lauren E. Barney, Christopher L. Hall, Elizabeth A. Brooks, Alyssa D. Schwartz, Daniel C. Corbett, Kelly R. Stevens, Shelly Peyton Jan 2017

Comparative Study Of Multicellular Tumor Spheroid Formation Methods And Implications For Drug Screening, Maria F. Gencoglu, Lauren E. Barney, Christopher L. Hall, Elizabeth A. Brooks, Alyssa D. Schwartz, Daniel C. Corbett, Kelly R. Stevens, Shelly Peyton

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publication Series

Improved in vitro models are needed to better understand cancer progression and bridge the gap between in vitro proof-of-concept studies, in vivo validation, and clinical application. Multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTS) are a popular method for three-dimensional (3D) cell culture, because they capture some aspects of the dimensionality, cell–cell contact, and cell–matrix interactions seen in vivo. Many approaches exist to create MCTS from cell lines, and they have been used to study tumor cell invasion, growth, and how cells respond to drugs in physiologically relevant 3D microenvironments. However, there are several discrepancies in the observations made of cell behaviors when comparing …