Abstract B03: Developmental paracrine signaling pathways promote prostate cancer progression

Classic experiments in prostate embryology showed more than 30 years ago that reciprocal paracrine signals between the developing prostatic epithelium and mesenchyme were an essential feature of prostatic branching morphogenesis. Parallel research on the role of epithelial-stromal interactions during the progression of prostate cancer also showed that one or more stromal-to-epithelial paracrine signaling pathways play key roles in promoting disease progression in prostatic adenocarcinomas. Modeling these paracrine interactions involving multiple cell types for mechanistic studies in vitro can be difficult using traditional co-culture and transwell approaches. The current study utilized a novel microfluidics-based culture system to examine paracrine interactions among multiple prostate cell types. The microfluidics culture system allowed culture of cells in a single chamber that are in direct contact or in separated chambers that prevented direct cell-cell contact but permited exchange of soluble factors. Two immortalized prostate stromal cell lines that are wild type (BHPrS-1) or have dominant negative TGFβ receptor II (BHPrS-DN) were previously demonstrated to have the properties cancer associated fibroblast (CAFs) when co-cultured were utilized in these studies. Co-culture of prostate epithelial cells with CAF-like stromal cells increased epithelial cell proliferation compared to monoculture, and they promoted other cancer-related epithelial phenotypes including invasi...
Source: Molecular Cancer Research - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Signaling Pathways: Hedgehog: Poster Presentations - Proffered Abstracts Source Type: research