Cancer cell migration on 2D deformable substrates

Valentina Peschetola (1) , Claude Verdier (1) , Alain Duperray (2) , Davide Ambrosi (3)

1 LSP - Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Physique
2 INSERM U823 - Institut d'oncologie/développement Albert Bonniot de Grenoble
3 MOX - MOX, Dipartimento di Matematica

Tumor cell migration is a very important phenomenon occurring during the formation of metastases, and requires a precise understanding of the correlation between adhesion anchoring and cytoskeleton reorganization, as the cell moves forward. To understand such processes, different methods have been used to measure the displacement of fluorescent beads embedded within a gel, as a way to determine indirectly the traction stresses exerted by the cells. Here, a method for obtaining this traction is used, based on a minimization algorithm under force penalization. The method is applied to the case of migrating T24 cancer cells on polyacrylamide substrates. Results obtained on substrates with different rigidities are discussed. It is found that such cancer cells exert smaller traction as compared to other cell types.

Mots clés: tractions; cancer cell; forces; adhesion

Domaines: Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]; Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]

Valentina Peschetola, Claude Verdier, Alain Duperray, Davide Ambrosi. Cancer cell migration on 2D deformable substrates. L. Preziosi and A. Chauvière and C. Verdier. Cell Mechanics: from single scale-based models to multiscale modeling, Chapman & Hall/CRC, pp.1-24, 2009. ⟨hal-00410151⟩