Supporting data for "High throughput microscopy reveals the impact of multifactorial environmental perturbations on colorectal cancer cell growth"

Colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality is principally due to metastatic disease, with the most frequent organ of metastasis being liver. Biochemical and mechanical factors residing in the tumor microenvironment (TME) are considered to play a pivotal role in metastatic growth and response to therapy. However, it is difficult to study the TME systematically due to a lack of fully controlled model systems that can be investigated in rigorous detail. We present a quantitative imaging dataset of CRC cell growth dynamics influenced by in vivo-mimicking conditions. They consist of tumor cells grown in various biochemical and biomechanical microenvironmental contexts. These contexts include varying oxygen and drug concentrations, and growth on conventional stiff plastic, softer matrices, and bioengineered acellular liver extracellular matrix (ECM). Growth rate analyses under these conditions were performed via the cell phenotype digitizer (CellPD). Our data indicate the growth of highly aggressive HCT116 cells is affected by oxygen, substrate stiffness, and liver ECM. In addition, hypoxia has a protective effect against oxaliplatin-induced cytotoxicity on plastic and liver ECM. This expansive data set of CRC cell growth measurements under <i>in situ</i> relevant environmental perturbations provides insights into critical TME features contributing to metastatic seeding and tumor growth. Such insights are essential to dynamical modeling and understanding the multicellular tumor-stroma dynamics that contribute to metastatic colonization. It also establishes a benchmark data set for training and testing data-driven dynamical models of cancer cell lines and therapeutic response in a variety of microenvironmental conditions.