Development of Tumor-Vasculature Interaction on Chip Mimicking Vessel Co-Option of Glioblastoma

Vessel co-option (VC) differs from angiogenesis in that tumor cells grow toward blood vessels. Through VC, tumor cells can receive relatively more nutrients and oxygen from blood vessels. Despite its clinical significance, VC is relatively less studied compared to angiogenesis because of difficulties in longitudinal observation of VC in vivo and lack of proper VC models in vitro. A needle template method in which microchannels are formed in hydrogel by needles was used to form blood vessels and mimic angiogenesis. However, it has not yet been used to mimic VC. In this study, we report the development of VC on chip based on the needle template method. On the VC on chip, the effect of distance between spheroids and blood vessels on VC induction was investigated by seeding glioblastoma (GBM) spheroids 50 and 250 μm from the preformed blood vessels. Irrespective of distance, cancer cells from the spheroids grew toward the blood vessels but did not penetrate the vessels, indicating that GBM cells showed VC-like behavior. These results suggest that our chip could recapitulate VC in GBM.