Mechanical stiffness grades metastatic potential in patient tumor cells and in cancer cell lines.

ABSTRACT: Cancer cells are defined by their ability to invade through the basement membrane, a critical step during metastasis. While increased secretion of proteases, which facilitates degradation of the basement membrane, and alterations in the cytoskeletal architecture of cancer cells have been previously studied, the contribution of the mechanical properties of cells in invasion is unclear. Here, we applied a magnetic tweezer system to establish that stiffness of patient tumor cells and cancer cell lines inversely correlates with migration and invasion through three-dimensional basement membranes, a correlation known as a power law. We found that cancer cells with the highest migratory and invasive potential are five times less stiff than cells with the lowest migration and invasion potential. M

SUBMITTER: Swaminathan V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3220953 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature