While considerable progress has been made in studying genetic and cellular aspects of metastasis with in vitro cell culture and in vivo animal models, the driving mechanisms of each step of metastasis are still relatively unclear due to their complexity. Moreover, little progress has been made in understanding how cellular fitness in one step of the metastatic cascade correlates with ability to survive other subsequent steps. Engineered models incorporate tools such as tailored biomaterials and microfabrication to mimic human disease progression, which when coupled with advanced quantification methods permit comparisons to human patient samples and in vivo studies. Here, we review novel tools and techniques that have been recently developed to dissect key features of the metastatic cascade using primary patient samples and highly representative microenvironments for the purposes of advancing personalized medicine and precision oncology. Although improvements are needed to increase tractability and accessibility while faithfully simulating the in vivo microenvironment, these models are powerful experimental platforms for understanding cancer biology, furthering drug screening, and facilitating development of therapeutics.

虽然通过体外细胞培养和体内动物模型研究转移的遗传和细胞方面已经取得了相当大的进展，但由于其复杂性，转移的每个步骤的驱动机制仍然相对不清楚。此外，在了解转移级联的一个步骤中的细胞适应性与其他后续步骤的存活能力之间的关系方面，几乎没有取得任何进展。工程模型结合了定制生物材料和微加工等工具来模拟人类疾病的进展，当与先进的量化方法相结合时，可以与人类患者样本和体内研究进行比较。在这里，我们回顾了最近开发的新工具和技术，利用原始患者样本和高度代表性的微环境来剖析转移级联的关键特征，以推进个性化医疗和精准肿瘤学。尽管需要进行改进以提高易处理性和可访问性，同时忠实地模拟体内微环境，但这些模型是了解癌症生物学、进一步药物筛选和促进治疗方法开发的强大实验平台。