Establishment of a 3D co-culture model to investigate the role of primary fibroblasts in the development of an invasive phenotype of DCIS lesions

In 13–50%, Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) progresses to an Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC). As the individual progression risk from DCIS to IDC cannot be estimated based on clinical parameters or biomarkers, all patients with DCIS are medically treated equally. However, the role of tumor microenvironment and especially of tumor-associated fibroblasts (TAFs) appears to be critical for progression from DCIS to IDC. Based on previous work by Sameni et al. (2012), the aim of this study was to establish a 3D co-culture of primary fibroblasts and DCIS cells in vitro as a model for further investigations of TAFs’ role in breast cancer progression.