Jenei Veronika, Nystrom Maria L, Thomas Gareth J
Division of Cancer Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Methods Mol Biol. 2011;769:223-32. doi: 10.1007/978-1-61779-207-6_15.
Organotypic cultures are in vitro models that can be used to study the interactions between tumour and stromal cells. Collective tumour cell invasion in organotypic assays resembles that seen in human tissues in vivo, suggesting physiological relevance. A qualitative, pathological description of such invasion may be inadequate, and there is therefore a need to accurately quantify the degree of invasion. Although the simplest method to quantify invasion is to measure maximum invasive depth, this ignores the importance of the pattern of tumour invasion, which often reflects tumour aggressiveness. We use image analysis software to analyse organotypic invasion objectively, taking into account the average depth of tumour invasion, and the number and area of invading tumour islands. The product of these parameters is termed the "invasion index," which maximises differences in invasion and also reflects the invasive pattern of the gel in a way that none of the individual parameters does alone.
器官型培养是一种体外模型，可用于研究肿瘤细胞与基质细胞之间的相互作用。在器官型实验中，肿瘤细胞的集体侵袭类似于在体内人体组织中观察到的情况，表明具有生理相关性。对这种侵袭进行定性的病理学描述可能并不充分，因此需要准确量化侵袭程度。虽然量化侵袭的最简单方法是测量最大侵袭深度，但这忽略了肿瘤侵袭模式的重要性，而肿瘤侵袭模式往往反映肿瘤的侵袭性。我们使用图像分析软件客观地分析器官型侵袭，同时考虑肿瘤侵袭的平均深度以及侵袭性肿瘤岛的数量和面积。这些参数的乘积被称为“侵袭指数”，它能最大程度地体现侵袭差异，并且以单个参数无法单独做到的方式反映凝胶的侵袭模式。
