Abstract
Organotypic cultures are in vitro models that can be used to study the interactions between tumour and stromal cells. Collective tumour cell invasion in organotypic assays resembles that seen in human tissues in vivo, suggesting physiological relevance. A qualitative, pathological description of such invasion may be inadequate, and there is therefore a need to accurately quantify the degree of invasion. Although the simplest method to quantify invasion is to measure maximum invasive depth, this ignores the importance of the pattern of tumour invasion, which often reflects tumour aggressiveness. We use image analysis software to analyse organotypic invasion objectively, taking into account the average depth of tumour invasion, and the number and area of invading tumour islands. The product of these parameters is termed the “invasion index,” which maximises differences in invasion and also reflects the invasive pattern of the gel in a way that none of the individual parameters does alone.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Liotta, L. A., and Kohn, E. C. (2001) The microenvironment of the tumour-host interface. Nature 411, 375–379.
De Wever, O., Demetter, P., Mareel, M., and Brack, M. (2008) Stromal myofibroblasts are drivers of invasive cancer growth. Int. J. Cancer 123, 2229–2238.
Nystrom, M. L., Thomas, G. J., Hart, I. R., Stone, M., McKenzie, I. C., and Marshall, J. F. (2005) Development of a quantitative method to analyse tumour cell invasion in organotypic culture. J. Pathol. 205, 468–475.
Fries, K. M., Blieden, T., Looney, R. J., Sempowski, G. D., Silvera, M. R., Willis, R. A., and Phipps R. P. (1994) Evidence of fibroblast heterogeneity and the role of fibroblast subpopulations in fibrosis. Clin. Immunol. Immunopathol. 72, 283–292.
Nystrom, M. L., McCulloch, D., Weinreb, P. H., Violette, S. M., Speight, P. M., Marshall, J. F., Hart, I. R., and Thomas, G. J. (2006) Cyclooxygenase-2 inhibition suppresses αvβ6 integrin–dependent oral squamous carcinoma invasion. Cancer Res. 66, 10833–10842.
Woolgar J. (2006) Histopathological prognosticators in oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. Oral. Oncol. 42, 229–239.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank Professor Ian R. Hart and Dr. John F. Marshall for their significant contribution to this work, which was supported by Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Jenei, V., Nystrom, M.L., Thomas, G.J. (2011). Measuring Invasion in an Organotypic Model. In: Wells, C., Parsons, M. (eds) Cell Migration. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 769. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-207-6_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-207-6_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-61779-206-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-61779-207-6
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols