Confocal microscopy of cells implanted into tissue blocks: cell migration in long-term histocultures.

In three-dimensional tissues in vivo, cells find themselves in a unique, heterogeneous microenvironment among various cellular and noncellular elements. Cells are greatly affected by and contribute to their physical and chemical microenvironments. However, live cells are currently studied predominantly in homogeneous monolayer cultures where newly established contacts might be fundamentally different from contacts in vivo. Several systems have been suggested to simulate the three-dimensional environment of real tissue. In this report, we describe a new system for studying cell behavior inside real tissues in vitro. By fluorescently labeling mouse tumor cells, them implanting them into cultured tissue blocks (histocultures), we have observed cellular location and followed their locomotion, within tissues in vitro for days. We discuss the potential of the described system for studying different aspects of cell behavior in a nativelike microenvironment.