Cell-like pressure sensors reveal increase of mechanical stress towards the core of multicellular spheroids under compression.

ABSTRACT: The surrounding microenvironment limits tumour expansion, imposing a compressive stress on the tumour, but little is known how pressure propagates inside the tumour. Here we present non-destructive cell-like microsensors to locally quantify mechanical stress distribution in three-dimensional tissue. Our sensors are polyacrylamide microbeads of well-defined elasticity, size and surface coating to enable internalization within the cellular environment. By isotropically compressing multicellular spheroids (MCS), which are spherical aggregates of cells mimicking a tumour, we show that the pressure is transmitted in a non-trivial manner inside the MCS, with a pressure rise towards the core. This observed pressure profile is explained by the anisotropic arrangement of cells and our results sugge

SUBMITTER: Dolega ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5290143 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature