Fig. 2.

Breast Cancer compartment optimization. (a) Schematic representation of the breast cancer compartment. (b) Micrograph of a MDA-1833 ​cell spheroid cultured for 3 days on the microfluidic platform. Blue - DAPI. Red - F-actin. Scale bar - 200 ​μm. (c) Expression of CD49f on MDA-1833 ​cells. DAPI (blue), F-Actin (red) and CD49f (green). Scale bar - 200 ​μm. Inset single channel images are shown on the right DAPI (blue, top), F-Actin (red, mid) and CD49f (green, bottom). Inset scale bar - 50 ​μm. (d) Annexin V quantification by flow cytometry of breast cancer spheroids cultured inside the microfluidic platform (left) or in standard well plates (right). Ten spheroids were pooled together for the analysis. (e) IL-11 quantification in conditioned media from MDA-1833 spheroids cultured in the microfluidic platform or in well plates. Data is expressed as median of individual data points from 3 independent experiments and was normalized to the total protein content (Mann-Whitney test, p ​= ​0.1000). (f) Proteomic screening of the conditioned media from MDA-1833 spheroids cultured in the microfluidic or in standard well plates. Data is represented as the logarithm of base 10 of the ratio between the abundance of each secreted protein within the microfluidic and well plate.