Interrogating tumor microenvironment in esophageal adenocarcinoma using assembloid cultures
Cancer progression is strongly influenced by the tumor microenvironment (TME). Tumor organoids model cancer heterogeneity, but non-cancer cell types are absent.
The researchers present a co-culture method for producing assembloid cultures, combining tumor organoids and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) to model tumor-stromal interactions in 3D.
The assembloid models recapitulate the differentiation status of esophageal adenocarcinoma and different CAF phenotypes found in the EAC patient TME.
They present a toolkit for characterizing these interactions using whole-mount immunofluorescence and histology.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-methods/fulltext/S2667-2375(24)00299-6
