Integrin-mediated traction force enhances paxillin molecular associations and adhesion dynamics that increase the invasiveness of tumor cells into a three-dimensional extracellular matrix.

ABSTRACT: Metastasis requires tumor cells to navigate through a stiff stroma and squeeze through confined microenvironments. Whether tumors exploit unique biophysical properties to metastasize remains unclear. Data show that invading mammary tumor cells, when cultured in a stiffened three-dimensional extracellular matrix that recapitulates the primary tumor stroma, adopt a basal-like phenotype. Metastatic tumor cells and basal-like tumor cells exert higher integrin-mediated traction forces at the bulk and molecular levels, consistent with a motor-clutch model in which motors and clutches are both increased. Basal-like nonmalignant mammary epithelial cells also display an altered integrin adhesion molecular organization at the nanoscale and recruit a suite of paxillin-associated proteins implicated i

SUBMITTER: Mekhdjian AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5449147 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature