A critical stress to detach cancer cells in microchannels
Résumé
We present experiments involving cancer cells adhering in microchannels, subjected to increasing shear rates. Morphological studies are carried out at different shear stresses. Cells exhibit spreading patterns similar to the ones observed in static conditions, as long as the shear stress is not too high. At a critical wall shear stress, cells decrease their area until detachment at the larger stresses. This critical shear stress is shown to be lower for higher confinements. Fluorescent techniques are also used to localize focal adhesions under various shearing conditions, showing that cells reinforce their focal contacts in the region facing the flow. To analyze such data, we propose a model to determine the critical stress, resulting from the competition between hydrodynamic forces and the adhesive cell resistance. With this model typical adhesive stresses exerted at each focal contact can be determined and are in agreement with previous works.
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