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1Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States
2Department of Dermatology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States
3Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States
4Department of Pathology, Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States
Tumor-stromal interactions within the tumor microenvironment (TME) influence lung cancer progression and response to therapeutic interventions, yet traditional
in vitro studies fail to replicate the complexity of these interactions. Herein, we developed three-dimensional (3D) lung tumor models that mimic the human TME and demonstrate tumor-stromal crosstalk mediated by extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs released by tumor cells, independent of p53 status, and fibroblasts within the TME mediate