Cancer-associated fibroblasts promote chemo-resistance in breast-cancer-on-chip.

MDA-MB-231 cancer cells were co-cultured on-chip +/- cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and +/- doxorubicin (1μM) treatment. Final CAF:cancer ratio was 1:6. The graph shows the time-course quantifications of the apoptosis rate, calculated in 4 h-time-intervals (T_LAG = 4 h), for a total duration of 68 h. The graphs show the means of 3 measurements on 3 view fields from the same experiment (+/- SEM). The data illustrating the MDA-MB-231 without CAF conditions come from the same videos analyzed for Fig 2 but with different time-interval resolution. For statistical analysis, the measurements for each of the 4 conditions were assembled regardless of the time variable (n = 51 per condition). The different CAF/drug conditions were compared to the MDA-MB-231 control condition. The data passed the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, therefore the unpaired t test was applied. ** indicates p<0.001, * indicates p<0.05 and ns indicates not significant.