Identification of MCM4 and PRKDC as new regulators of osteosarcoma cell dormancy based on 3D cell cultures.

Dormancy is a potential way for tumors to develop drug resistance and escape treatment. However, the mechanisms involved in cancer dormancy remain poorly understood. This is mainly because there is no in vitro culture model making it possible to spontaneously induce dormancy.

Technical report: liquid overlay technique allows the generation of homogeneous osteosarcoma, glioblastoma, lung and prostate adenocarcinoma spheroids that can be used for drug cytotoxicity measurements.

The mechanisms involved in cancer initiation, progression, drug resistance, and disease recurrence are traditionally investigated through adherent monolayer (2D) cell models. However, solid malignant tumor growth is characterized by progression in three dimensions (3D), and an increasing amount of evidence suggests that 3D culture models, such as spheroids, are suitable for mimicking cancer development. The aim of this report was to reaffirm the relevance of simpler 3D culture methods to produce highly reproducible spheroids, especially in the context of drug cytotoxicity measurements.

Drug-tolerant persister cells in cancer: the cutting edges and future directions.

Drug-tolerant persister (DTP) cell populations were originally discovered in antibiotic-resistant bacterial biofilms. Similar populations with comparable features have since been identified among cancer cells and have been linked with treatment resistance that lacks an underlying genomic alteration. Research over the past decade has improved our understanding of the biological roles of DTP cells in cancer, although clinical knowledge of the role of these cells in treatment resistance remains limited.

Spatial Distribution of Immune Cells in Primary and Recurrent Glioblastoma: A Small Case Study.

Only a minority of patients with glioblastoma (GBM) respond to immunotherapy, and always only partially. There is a lack of knowledge on immune distribution in GBM and in its tumor microenvironment (TME). To address the question, we used paired primary and recurrent tumors from GBM patients to study the composition and the evolution of the immune landscape upon treatment.