ABSTRACT
Tumor cells attain the capability to invade into the adjacent surrounding tissue and spread into far off organs leading to metastasis as malignancy advances. The need to identify appropriate inhibitors to cancer invasion has facilitated the development of various quantitative in vitro invasion assays. The in vitro invasion approaches that are developed offer a fast and more economical alternative to the use of animal models and are amenable to interventions that are not practical in vivo. The most frequently employed method to measure tumor cell invasion is Transwell assay which uses well-defined 3D matrices like collagen or matrigel. Though the Platypus invasion assay resembles the cell exclusion zone migration assay described in this chapter in using small silicone stoppers fitting into 96-well plates, the method setup is relatively different. Cells are seeded on top of a thin surface coated with extracellular matrix (ECM) and are further blanketed by a second denser stratum of ECM.
