Abstract Background 3D culture is increasingly used in cancer research, as it allows the growth of cells in an environment that mimics in vivo conditions. Metastases are the primary cause of morbidity and mortality in cancer patients, and solid tumour metastases are mostly located in lymph nodes. Currently, there are no techniques that model the pre-metastatic lymph node microenvironment in vitro. In this study, we prepared a novel extracellular matrix, Lymphogel, which is derived from lymph nodes, mimicking the tumour microenvironment (TME) of metastatic carcinoma cells. We tested the suitability of the new matrix in various functional experiments and compared the results with those obtained using existing matrices. Methods We used both commercial and patient-derived primary and metastatic oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma (OTSCC) cell lines. We characterized the functional differences of these cells using three different matrices (human uterine leiomyoma-derived Myogel, human pre-metastatic neck lymph node-derived Lymphogel (h-LG), porcine normal neck lymph node-derived Lymphogel (p-LG) in proliferation, adhesion, migration and invasion assays. We also performed proteomic analyses to compare the different matrices in relation to their functional properties. Results OTSCC cells exhibited different adhesion and invasion patterns depending on the matrix. Metastatic cell lines showed improved ability to adhere to h-LG, but the effects of the matrices on cell invasion fluctuated non-significantly between the cell lines. Proteomic analyses showed that the protein composition between matrices was highly variable; Myogel contained 618, p-LG 1823 and h-LG 1520 different proteins. The comparison of all three matrices revealed only 120 common proteins. Analysis of cellular pathways and processes associated with proteomes of each matrix revealed similarities of Myogel with h-LG but less with p-LG. Similarly, p-LG contained the least adhesion-related proteins compared with Myogel and h-LG. The highest number of unique adhesion-related proteins was present in h-LG. Conclusions We demonstrated that human pre-metastatic neck lymph node-derived matrix is suitable for studying metastatic OTSCC cells. As a whole-protein extract, h-LG provides new opportunities for in vitro carcinoma cell culture experiments.
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