Analysis of macrophage regulation and function in solid tumors
Macrophages are generally abundant in solid tumors, exerting many pro-tumoral activities. A complex network of interactions occurs within the tumor microenvironment between macrophages and other cell populations, such as stromal cells and T lymphocytes, that remains to be deciphered at the molecular and spatial levels.
We are studying how tumor and myeloid cells impact each other in minimalistic models that are used to mathematically model their behavior and learn more about the nature of their interactions.
Our 3D in vitro models, analyzed in real-time, allow for the studying and manipulating the interplay between myeloid, tumor cells, and cytotoxic T cells. In this context, we analyze immunosuppressive myeloid cells and are developing ways to manipulate macrophages to enhance the anti-tumor immune response for therapeutic purposes.
Figure 3: 3D imaging after clearing of spheroids by epifluorescence microscopy. 2500 GFP lung tumor cells (in purple) were cultured for several days. The nuclei are stained with DAPI (in blue). The clearing procedure makes it possible to image the entire spheroid without loss of any fluorescence signal.
Figure 4: Imaging heterospheroids by epifluorescence microscopy. 2500 KP-GFP lung tumor cells (in green) and 5000 mouse monocytes (in purple) were co-cultured for several days. The nuclei are stained with DAPI (in blue).