Resumen
Metastasis is the stage at which the prognosis substantially decreases for many types of cancer. The ability of cancer cells to disseminate to distant organs, such as the lung, in the body is dependent on the conditioning of these distant sites by the primary tumor. Herein, we investigated the characteristics of the lung, a common site of metastasis, for human breast cancer cell lines that are either metastatic or non-metastatic. The characteristics of the lung were significantly altered by both metastatic and non-metastatic cancer cells, though the non-metastatic cells had distinct effects relative to the metastatic cells. We also investigated the use of a synthetic niche as a surrogate for the lung, which recapitulated the effects of the metastatic and non-metastatic cells. The analysis of the synthetic niche may provide an opportunity to identify disease aggressiveness without the risks associated with the biopsy of vital organs.