Fig. 8: PDAC treatment response in PA-ECM and organoid cultures.

a Histology of PDAC (12560) mono- and triple cultures in PA-ECM treated with gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. Cells were stained with H&E to assess cellularity, Ki-67 for proliferation and cleaved caspase-3 for apoptosis. Scale bars: 100 µm. b In vivo response of PDX tumours to chemotherapy depicted as percentage of tumour volume post-treatment relative to controls (0.9% NaCl). Box plots indicate range, interquartile range and median. For each patient and condition, n = 5 mice with one tumour each. c Quantification of Ki-67 and cleaved caspase-3 staining of PDAC mono- and triple cultures in PA-ECM treated with gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. Triple+ cultures contained twice the number of PSCs (mean ± SD; n = 3 biological replicates). d Response of PA-ECM and organoid cultures to gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel as assayed by flow cytometry. Percentages represent the proportion of cells that were both intact and in G1 phase compared to untreated controls (mean ± SD; n = 5 biological replicates). e, f Flow cytometry plots showing the cell cycle arrest of PA-ECM (e) and organoid (f) cultures treated with gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. The upper panels show the gated populations of intact cells. The lower panels depict the cell cycle profiles of untreated (red) and treated (blue) samples gated to exclude debris and doublets.