Novel Techniques to Study the Bone-Tumor Microenvironment.

Many cancers commonly metastasize to bone. After entering the bone, cancer cells can interact with surrounding stromal cells, which ultimately influences metastasis progression. Extracellular vesicles, direct cell contact and gap junctions, and cytokines are all mechanisms of intercellular communication that have been observed to occur in the bone microenvironment. These methods of cellular crosstalk can occur between cancer cells and a variety of stromal cells, with each interaction having a different impact on cancer progression. Communication between cancer cells and bone-resident cells has previously been implicated in processes such as cancer cell trafficking and arrest in bone, cancer cell dormancy, cancer cell reactivation, and proliferation. In this chapter we review innovative techniques and model systems that can be used to study bidirectional crosstalk between cancer cells and stromal cells in the bone, with an emphasis specifically on bone-metastatic breast cancer. Investigating how metastatic cancer cells interact with, and are influenced by, the bone microenvironment is crucial to better understanding of the progression of bone metastasis.