An engineered model of metastatic colonization of human bone marrow reveals breast cancer cell remodeling of the hematopoietic niche

Incomplete understanding of metastatic disease mechanisms continues to hinder effective treatment of cancer. Despite remarkable advancements toward the identification of druggable targets, treatment options for patients in remission following primary tumor resection remain limited. Bioengineered human tissue models of metastatic sites capable of recreating the physiologically relevant milieu of metastatic colonization may strengthen our grasp of cancer progression and contribute to the development of effective therapeutic strategies. We report the use of an engineered tissue model of human bone marrow (eBM) to identify microenvironmental cues regulating cancer cell proliferation and to investigate how triple-negative breast cancer cell lines influence hematopoiesis. Notably, individual stromal components of the BM niche (osteoblasts, endothelial cells, and mesenchymal stem/stromal cells) were each critical for regulating tumor cell quiescence and proliferation in the three-dimensional eBM niche. In this data set, we provide transcriptomic information from bulk RNA sequencing of MDA-MB-231 cancer cells that were pre-conditioned by being co-cultured on variations of eBM tissues. We envision that this human tissue model will facilitate studies of niche-specific metastatic progression and individualized responses to treatment.