Gene expression profiles of SKOV3 tumor cells that could form heterotypic spheroids with high grade serous ovarian cancer derived cancer-associated fibroblasts, and those remaining individual SKOV3 cells in non-adherent (NAD) coculture condition.

Interaction between stromal cells and the tumor greatly influences tumor initiation and progression. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are the major component of tumor stroma and play a key role in ovarian cancer (OC) cells adhesion and metastasis. CAFs were found abundantly in primary tumor and metastases, as well as in malignant ascites of high grade serous OC patients, underscoring that CAFs modulate OC cells phenotype and facilitate disease exacerbation along OC progression. Studies of CAFs exertion on OC mainly focused on the influence of CAFs conditioned medium (CM) influence of tumor cells phenotype, while ignoring the fact that CAFs are supposed to be in intimate contact with neoplastic cells in tumor mass, and that CAFs also form compact heterotypic spheroids with ascitic tumor cells in malignant ascites. We hypothesized that uncovering the underlying molecules that mediate tumor cells binding with CAFs could aid in developing measures destroying the pro-carcinogenic heterotypic spheroids in malignant ascites. In this study, gene expression profiling was completed for individual SKOV3, and magnetic sorted SKOV3 cells that form heterotypic spheroids with 4 cases of high grade serous OC derived CAFs. By comparing the expression data of SKOV3 cells in individual group with that in spheroid group, we identified a set of differential expressed genes. This study revealed the heterogeneity of ascitic tumor cells and raised potent therapeutical targets in destroying of the heterotypic spheroids in malignant ascites of OC.

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