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

Elliot Lopez (1) , Sahil Kamboj (2) , Changchong Chen (1) , Zixu Wang (1) , Sabrina Kellouche (2) , Johanne Leroy-Dudal (2) , Franck Carreiras (2) , Ambroise Lambert (2) , Carole Aimé (1)

1 PASTEUR - Processus d'Activation Sélective par Transfert d'Energie Uni-électronique ou Radiatif (UMR 8640)
2 ERRMECe - Equipe de recherche sur les relations matrice extracellulaire-cellules

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.

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

Domaines: Cancer; Gynécologie et obstétrique; Biologie cellulaire

Elliot Lopez, Sahil Kamboj, Changchong Chen, Zixu Wang, Sabrina Kellouche, et al.. In Vitro Models of Ovarian Cancer: Bridging the Gap between Pathophysiology and Mechanistic Models. Biomolecules, 2023, 13 (1), pp.103. ⟨10.3390/biom13010103⟩. ⟨hal-03926151⟩