The impact of extracellular matrix on the precision medicine utility of pancreatic cancer patient-derived organoids

Abstract

The use of patient-derived organoids (PDOs) to characterize therapeutic sensitivity and resistance (pharmacotyping) is a promising precision medicine approach with potential to inform clinical decisions that is now being tested in several large multi-institutional clinical trials. PDOs are cultivated in extracellular matrix from basement membrane extracts (BMEs) that are most commonly acquired commercially. Each clinical site utilizes distinct BME lots and may be restricted due to the availability of commercial BME sources. However, the impact of different sources and lots of BMEs on organoid drug response is unknown. Here, we tested the impact of BME source and lot on proliferation, chemotherapy and targeted therapy drug response, and gene expression in mouse and human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA). Both human and mouse organoids displayed increased proliferation in Matrigel compared to Cultrex (RnD) and UltiMatrix (RnD). However, we observed no substantial impact on organoid drug response when cultured in Matrigel, Cultrex, or UltiMatrix. We also did not observe major shifts in gene expression across the different BME sources, and PDOs maintained their Classical or Basal-like designation. Overall, we find that BME source (Matrigel, Cultrex, UltiMatrix) does not significantly nor substantially shift PDO dose-response curves and drug testing results.

The Human Extracellular Matrix Diseasome Reveals Genotype–Phenotype Associations with Clinical Implications for Age-Related Diseases

“…As shown in squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC), the integration of ECM features in aging and diseased tissue with multi-omics data on SqCC can aptly determine the risk of cancer development [ 70 ]. The applications for precision medicine are endless, as organoid models created with patient-derived cell lines and their associated SNVs and other manipulations of ECMs, which may be representative of certain phenotypes, can be further explored in disease pathology, particularly in other age-related diseases, inflammatory conditions [ 71 ], osteoarthritis [ 72 ], and processes such as tumor–stroma interactions [ 73 ] and various types of cancer [ 74 ]. The matrisome is earning an increasingly prominent role in the pathology of disease ( Figure 9 ).…”