Fig 2. Comparison of the Boyden chamber, 2D co-culture and 3D co-culture systems.

To compare the 3D co-culture system to the 2D co-culture and trans- well co-culture systems, tumor cells and fibroblasts were cultured as either as mono-cultures or co-cultures for 5 days as described in the Materials and Methods section. Cell viability was measured on day 5. We observed that 3D co-culture of the tumor cells with fibroblasts induced differential proliferation in co-cultures compared to the Boyden chamber or the 2D co-culture system.