Prostate cancer cells of increasing metastatic potential exhibit diverse contractile forces, cell stiffness, and motility in a microenvironment stiffness-dependent manner.

ABSTRACT: During metastasis, all cancer types must migrate through crowded multicellular environments. Simultaneously, cancers appear to change their biophysical properties. Indeed, cell softening and increased contractility are emerging as seemingly ubiquitous biomarkers of metastatic progression which may facilitate metastasis. Cell stiffness and contractility are also influenced by the microenvironment. Stiffer matrices resembling the tumor microenvironment cause metastatic cells to contract more strongly, further promoting contractile tumorigenic phenotypes. Prostate cancer (PCa), however, appears to deviate from these common cancer biophysics trends; aggressive metastatic PCa cells appear stiffer, rather than softer, to their lowly metastatic PCa counterparts. Although metastatic PCa cells have

SUBMITTER: Molter CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9527313 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature