2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

65 David Fecher M.Sc. Phone +49 931 31-89034 david.fecher@uni-wuerzburg.de Prof. Dr. Heike Walles Phone +49 711 970-4117 heike.walles@igb.fraunhofer.de The development of an advanced, invasive tumor model The leading cause of death from cancers are metastatic tu- mors elsewhere in the body. The so-called epithelial-mesen- chymal transition plays an important role, in which the tumor cells acquire the ability to invade other tissues. This process can be induced in our system through the stimulation of tu- mor cells. The tumor cells lose the expression of epithelial markers and migrate deep into the matrix. Using this model, the process of invasion can be better understood, which will allow the development of targeted therapies. Outlook With the developed human test system, new drugs for the treatment of lung adenocarcinomas can be tested and the ef- fectiveness of targeted drugs and therapies can be predicted. The ease of use, rapid availability and low costs of the system makes it less time-consuming and more efﬁcient than animal studies. By the use of primary tumor cells from biopsies of the pa- tient, a “personalized model” of the patient’s tumor can be generated, allowing a much better prediction of the patient’s reaction to a therapeutic approach. To create a more realistic tissue model, we use an additional support structure based on decellularized lungs, which pos- sesses the complex three-dimensional architecture of the lung. For culturing this tissue model, a bioreactor is designed so the negative pressure respiration of the lung can be simulated. 1 Apical mucin-1 expression of HCC-827 cell line. 2 Depolarized, increased expression of mucin-1 of the A549 cell line. 3 Co-culture with primary ﬁbroblasts and tumor epithelial cells. 4 Matrix structure of an acellular lung. 5 The bioreactor for the culture of the lung matrix. References [1] Jemal, A.; Center, M.; DeSantis C.; Ward E. M. (2010) Glob- al patterns of cancer incidence and mortality rates and trends, Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 19: 1893 [2] PhRMA industry proﬁle (2012) http://de.slideshare.net/ PhRMA/2012-pharmaceutical-industry-proﬁle-12691151 [3] Mertsching, H.; Walles, T.; Hofmann, M.; Schanz, J.; Knapp, H. (2005) Engineering of a vascularized scaffold for artiﬁcial tissue and organ generation, Biomaterials 33: 6610–6617 Funding We would like to thank the Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology and the Fraun- hofer-Gesellschaft for funding of the Fraunhofer Project Group “Regenerative Technologies for Oncology” as part of the pro- gram Bavaria FIT. 4 5 Contacts

2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

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