Fig. 5.

Tri-culture assembly on the microfluidic platform. (a) Schematic representation of the assembled microfluidic platform. (b) Timeline of the experiment. (c) Representative micrographs of (1) the cancer compartment, (2) the neuron compartment and (3) the bone compartment. Scale bar – 100 ​μm. (d) Bone metabolism array data of conditioned medium from the cancer compartment. Data is represented as Mean Fluorescence Intensity and normalized by total protein content. (e, f) Quantification of MIP1α and IL-6 concentration in conditioned media from the breast cancer compartment by ELISA. Data is expressed as median of individual data points from 3 independent experiments and was normalized to the total protein content (One-way ANOVA test, ∗p ​< ​0.05, ∗∗p ​< ​0.01). (g) Quantification of resorption event number and (h) percentage of trench number relative to total number of events. Data is expressed as median of individual data points from 3 independent experiments (One-way ANOVA test, non-significant). (i) Schematical representation of the experimental setting. Closing the valve between the neuronal and bone compartment forces communication to be preferentially through the cancer compartment. (j) Quantification of MIP1α and (k) IL-6 concentration in conditioned media from the breast cancer compartment by ELISA. Data is expressed as median of individual data points from 3 independent experiments and was normalized to the total protein content (Mann-Whitney test, non-significant).