Matrix Stiffness-Regulated Growth of Breast Tumor Spheroids and Their Response to Chemotherapy

Interactions between tumor cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) are an important factor contributing to therapy failure in cancer patients. Current in vitro breast cancer spheroid models examining the role of mechanical properties on spheroid response to chemotherapy are limited by the use of two-dimensional cell culture, as well as simultaneous variation in hydrogel matrix stiffness and other properties, e.g., hydrogel composition, pore size, and cell adhesion ligand density. In addition, currently used hydrogel matrices do not replicate the filamentous ECM architecture in a breast tumor microenvironment. Here, we report a collagen-alginate hydrogel with a filamentous architecture and a 20-fold variation in stiffness, achieved independently of other properties, used for the evaluation of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer spheroid response to doxorubicin. The variation in hydrogel mechanical properties was achieved by altering the degree of cross-linking of alginate molecules. We show that soft hydrogels promote the growth of larger MCF-7 tumor spheroids with a lower fraction of proliferating cells and enhance spheroid resistance to doxorubicin. Notably, the stiffness-dependent chemotherapeutic response of the spheroids was temporally mediated: it became apparent at sufficiently long cell culture times, when the matrix stiffness has influenced the spheroid growth. These findings highlight the significance of decoupling matrix stiffness from other characteristics in studies of chemotherapeutic resistance of tumor spheroids and in development of drug screening platforms.