Interactions between human macrophages and tumor cells in three-dimensional cultures

Experimental anti-tumor therapy in 3-D: spheroids--old hat or new challenge?

PURPOSE

To give a state-of-the-art overview on the promise of three-dimensional (3-D) culture systems for anticancer drug development, with particular emphasis on multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTS).

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Cell-based assays have become an integral component in many stages of routine anti-tumor drug testing. However, they are almost always based on homogenous monolayer or suspension cultures and thus represent a rather artificial cellular environment. 3-D cultures--such as the well established spheroid culture system--better reflect the in vivo behavior of cells in tumor tissues and are increasingly recognized as valuable advanced tools for evaluating the efficacy of therapeutic intervention. The present article summarizes past and current applications and particularly discusses technological challenges, required improvements and recent progress with the use of the spheroid model in experimental therapeutics, as a basis for sophisticated drug/therapy screening. A brief overview is given focusing on the nomenclature of spherical 3-D cultures, their potential to mimic many aspects of the pathophysiological situation in tumors, and currently available protocols for culturing and analysis. A list of spheroid-forming epithelial cancer cell lines of different origin is provided and the recent trend to use spheroids for testing combination treatment strategies is highlighted. Finally, various spheroid co-culture approaches are presented that have been established to study heterologous cell interactions in solid tumors and thereby are able to reflect the cellular tumor environment with increasing accuracy. The intriguing observation that in order to retain certain tumor initiating cell properties, some primary tumor cell populations must be maintained exclusively in 3-D culture is mentioned, adding a new but fascinating challenge for future therapeutic campaigns.

Anti-tumoural activity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells against melanoma cells: discrepant in-vitro and in-vivo effects

As tumour cells use multiple mechanisms to escape from chemotherapeutic drugs, the anti-tumoural activity of naive mouse peripheral blood mononuclear cells was examined in this study, using a mouse melanoma cell subline resistant to doxorubicin (B16R). Multicellular spheroids are known to be the most adapted in-vitro model to mimic solid tumours in vivo and are used to investigate many aspects of tumour biology. For in-vitro studies, murine peripheral blood mononuclear cells recovered by Ficoll gradient centrifugation after caudal puncture were co-cultured with multicellular tumour spheroids of B16R cells. Morphological investigations show that peripheral blood mononuclear cells were gathered and focused around the spheroids after 14 h of co-culture and contacts were established within 32 h. Between 38 and 62 h of co-culture, the size of the spheroids decreased significantly. The peripheral blood mononuclear cells exerted cytolytic effects that correlated with the induction of cell death in spheroids of B16R melanoma cells. Immunological investigations to localize and identify peripheral blood mononuclear cells that exerted anti-tumoural effects have shown that spheroids were deeply infiltrated by monocytes/macrophages at a stage in which a significant cytolytic activity and a strong cell death rate were observed. For in-vivo studies, intratumoural injections of syngeneic naive peripheral blood mononuclear cells were administered. A weak potential in-vivo anti-tumoural effect of these cells was observed (inhibition of B16R melanoma growth by 20-25%) but the median survival time of mice treated with peripheral blood mononuclear cells did not increase compared with untreated control mice. Thus, despite anti-tumoural activities of peripheral blood mononuclear cells against the poorly immunogenic and highly metastatic chemoresistant B16 melanoma cells in vitro, a potential anti-melanoma effect in vivo, if present, did not increase the life span of B16R melanoma-bearing mice.

Autologous human macrophages and anti-tumour cell therapy

Most technical problems concerning the production of human macrophages have been resolved by cultures in hydrophobic plastic, gas-permeable bags. This process enables collection of non-adherent macrophages and is well adapted to the safety requirements of cell therapy. Under optimized culture conditions, about one billion macrophages are currently obtained from a single leukapheresis product. In most clinical trials, macrophages have been activated by interferon-gamma (IFNgamma). The injections have little or no toxic effect. The anti-tumour activity of the intravenous (i.v.) administrations is more pronounced in certain protocols than in others. The mechanism remains poorly understood. In vitro, the cytolytic effect of macrophages requires cell-to-cell contact but macrophages injected i.v. show no particular tropism for tumour tissue. This could result from modifications in adhesion molecules occurring during monocyte-macrophage differentiation which might modify recruitment in inflammatory foci. Macrophages can, however, infiltrate tumour cell clusters, which could explain their improved efficacy when injected intratumorally (i.t.). Moreover, several arguments would favour the use of macrophages as human tumour antigen-presenting cells (APCs). In vitro, macrophages are as efficient as monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDCs) in stimulating cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) clones or circulating CTL precursors.

Multicellular spheroids: a three-dimensional in vitro culture system to study tumour biology

The growth of tumour cells as three-dimensional multicellular spheroids in vitro has led to important insights in tumour biology, since properties of the in vivo-tumour such as proliferation or nutrient gradients, can be studied under controlled conditions. While this review starts with an update of recent data on spheroid monocultures, especially concerning tumour microenvironment and therapeutic modalities, the main emphasis is put on the spectrum of heterologous cultures which have evolved in previous years. This type of culture includes tumour cell interaction with endothelial, fibroblast or immunocompetent cells. The relation of the spheroid culture model to other types of three-dimensional culture and our critical evaluation and presentation of the technical aspects of growing and analysing spheroids are included in the text. These topics are chosen to help the experimental pathologist design experiments with tumour spheroids and to stimulate discussion.

CHO transfectants produce large amounts of recombinant protein in suspension culture

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells transfected with various genes are widely used as adherent cell monolayers to produce recombinant proteins. In this report we present a new culture technique for CHO cells transfected with the vector pPOL-DHFR-CD14 using a minifermenter (miniPERM, Heraeus) for the production of recombinant human endotoxin receptor CD14 (rCD14). The transfectants were cultured for 12-17 days under serum-free conditions and formed spheroids. From this system we harvested supernatants containing up to 3.1 mg/ml recombinant CD14 (rCD14). This represents a 200-fold increase of rCD14 yield compared to conventional adherent CHO cell culture.

Immune therapy with macrophages: present status and critical requirements for implementation

Adoptive transfer of activated macrophages has been validated in animal experimental tumor models; clinical trials are ongoing (70 patients up to now). The mechanisms involved are reviewed as well as improved and standardized procedures for macrophage differentiation and activation. New developments including specific Ag presentation and gene therapy are discussed.

Internalization of human macrophage surface antigens induced by monoclonal antibodies

Drugs intended to be endocytosed by macrophages may be transported by MAbs directed against these cells. Twenty MAbs were investigated for this purpose. The binding of these MAbs to macrophages obtained from a 7 day culture of blood monocytes showed that anti-CD11b and anti-CD14 recognized the highest number of cell surface antigen sites. Further assays determined that anti-CD63, Mo5 and anti-CD33 were the MAbs that induced the strongest modulation of the corresponding antigens, the highest rate being with anti-CD63. Endocytosis of antigen-antibody complexes was evidenced by the presence of MAbs in the cytoplasm. Anti-CD63 MAbs induced the highest internalization in this assay. For most MAbs, however, the density of antigen sites and the intensity of antigen modulation were not predictive of the amount of MAb detected in the cytoplasm.