Marta Estrada

TL;DR: 2D culture and 3D mono- and stromal co-culture models of increasing complexity have been established and cross-comparisons made using three standard cell carcinoma lines: MCF7, LNCaP, NCI-H1437 and the adaptable methodologies described here should guide the choice of appropriate simple and complex in vitro models.

TL;DR: The crosstalk between the ECM and tumour, stromal and immune cells in microencapsulated 3D-3-culture promotes the activation of monocytes into TAM, mimicking aggressive tumour stages, and constitutes a novel tool to study tumour-immune interaction and macrophage plasticity in response to external stimuli.

TL;DR: Alginate microencapsulation with agitation-based culture systems is combined, to recapitulate and monitor key aspects of the tumour microenvironment and disease progression, and constitutes a new tool to study tumour-stroma crosstalk, disease progression and drug resistance mechanisms.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that 3D tumor cell model production in stirred-tank culture systems is a robust and versatile approach, providing reproducible tools for drug screening and target verification in pre-clinical oncology research.

TL;DR: This review is focused on the several challenges and adjustments that the field of oncology research is facing to translate these advanced tumor cells models to drug discovery, taking advantage of the progress on culture technologies, imaging platforms, high throughput and automated systems.