In Vitro Models of Ovarian Cancer: Bridging the Gap between Pathophysiology and Mechanistic Models

Elliot Lopez; Sahil Kamboj; Changchong Chen; Zixu Wang; Sabrina Kellouche; Johanne Leroy-Dudal; Franck Carreiras; Ambroise Lambert; Carole Aimé

doi:10.3390/biom13010103

In Vitro Models of Ovarian Cancer: Bridging the Gap between Pathophysiology and Mechanistic Models

Biomolecules. 2023 Jan 4;13(1):103. doi: 10.3390/biom13010103.

Authors

Elliot Lopez¹, Sahil Kamboj², Changchong Chen¹, Zixu Wang¹, Sabrina Kellouche², Johanne Leroy-Dudal², Franck Carreiras², Ambroise Lambert², Carole Aimé¹

Affiliations

¹ PASTEUR, Département de Chimie, École Normale Supérieure, PSL University, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France.
² Equipe de Recherche sur les Relations Matrice Extracellulaire-Cellules, ERRMECe, EA1391, Groupe Matrice Extracellulaire et Physiopathologie (MECuP), Institut des Matériaux, I-MAT (FD4122), CY Cergy Paris Université, CEDEX, 95031 Neuville sur Oise, France.

Abstract

Ovarian cancer (OC) is a disease of major concern with a survival rate of about 40% at five years. This is attributed to the lack of visible and reliable symptoms during the onset of the disease, which leads over 80% of patients to be diagnosed at advanced stages. This implies that metastatic activity has advanced to the peritoneal cavity. It is associated with both genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity, which considerably increase the risks of relapse and reduce the survival rate. To understand ovarian cancer pathophysiology and strengthen the ability for drug screening, further development of relevant in vitro models that recapitulate the complexity of OC microenvironment and dynamics of OC cell population is required. In this line, the recent advances of tridimensional (3D) cell culture and microfluidics have allowed the development of highly innovative models that could bridge the gap between pathophysiology and mechanistic models for clinical research. This review first describes the pathophysiology of OC before detailing the engineering strategies developed to recapitulate those main biological features.

Keywords: ascites; biological engineering; epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; extracellular matrix; in vitro models; mechanotransduction; microfluidics; ovarian cancer; shear stress.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cell Culture Techniques
Female
Humans
Ovarian Neoplasms* / metabolism
Tumor Microenvironment

Grants and funding

The authors thank the China Scholarship Council for the PhD grant of C.C., and the Oversea Study Program of Guangzhou Elite Project for the PhD grant of Z.W. We thank the CNRS through the MITI interdisciplinary programs and CY Initiative of Excellence for financial support.