3D-3-culture: A tool to unveil macrophage plasticity in the tumour microenvironment

The tumour microenvironment (TME) shapes disease progression and influences therapeutic response.Most aggressive solid tumours have high levels of myeloid cell infiltration, namely tumour associatedmacrophages (TAM). Recapitulation of the interaction between the different cellular players of the TME,along with the extracellular matrix (ECM), is critical for understanding the mechanisms underlyingdisease progression. This particularly holds true for prediction of therapeutic response(s) to standardtherapies and interrogation of efficacy of TME-targeting agents. In this work, we explored a cultureplatform based on alginate microencapsulation and stirred culture systems to develop the 3D-3-culture,which entails the co-culture of tumour cell spheroids of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), cancerassociatedfibroblasts (CAF) and monocyte

We gratefully acknowledge Vítor E. Santo for the discussions in the initial phase of the work. We acknowledge support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Joint Undertaking (grant agreement no. 115188), MINECO/FEDER, Spain (Severo Ochoa SEV2015-0522, BIO2014-59614-JIN, RYC-2015-17935), Fundacio Pri- vada Cellex, Fundacion Mig-Puig and CERCA program, Spain; S.P. Rebelo et al. / Biomaterials 163 (2018) 185e197 195 iNOVA4Health Research Unit (LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-007344), which is cofunded by Fundaçao para a Ci ~ encia e Tecnologia (FCT)/ Ministerio da Ciencia e do Ensino Superior, through national funds, and by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement, is also acknowledged. CP and MFE are recipients of PhDs fellowships SFRH/BD/52202/2013 and SFRH/BD/52208/2013, respectively, funded by FCT, Portugal

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