Lopez-Cavestany, MariaWright, Olivia A.Reckhorn, Noah T.Carter, Alexandria T.Jayawardana, KalanaNguyen, TinBriggs, Dayrl P.Koktysh, Dmitry S.Esteban Linares, AlbertoLi, DeyuKing, Michael R.2024-10-082024-10-082024Lopez-Cavestany, M., Wright, O. A., Reckhorn, N. T., Carter, A. T., Jayawardana, K., Nguyen, T., Briggs, D. P., Koktysh, D. S., Esteban Linares, A., Li, D., & King, M. R. (2024). Superhydrophobic Array Devices for the Enhanced Formation of 3D Cancer Models. ACS Nano, 18(34), 23637–23654. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c08132https://hdl.handle.net/1911/117929During the metastatic cascade, cancer cells travel through the bloodstream as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to a secondary site. Clustered CTCs have greater shear stress and treatment resistance, yet their biology remains poorly understood. We therefore engineered a tunable superhydrophobic array device (SHArD). The SHArD-C was applied to culture a clinically relevant model of CTC clusters. Using our device, we cultured a model of cancer cell aggregates of various sizes with immortalized cancer cell lines. These exhibited higher E-cadherin expression and are significantly more capable of surviving high fluid shear stress-related forces compared to single cells and model clusters grown using the control method, helping to explain why clustering may provide a metastatic advantage. Additionally, the SHArD-S, when compared with the AggreWell 800 method, provides a more consistent spheroid-forming device culturing reproducible sizes of spheroids for multiple cancer cell lines. Overall, we designed, fabricated, and validated an easily tunable engineered device which grows physiologically relevant three-dimensional (3D) cancer models containing tens to thousands of cells.engExcept where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the terms of the license or beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.Journal articlesuperhydrophobic-array-deviceshttps://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c08132