Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 18: Poster VI

BP 18.23: Poster

Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 14:00–16:00, P2/2OG

Physical interaction of tumor spheroids with the ECM — •Eliane Blauth, Steffen Grosser, Frank Sauer, and Josef A. Käs — Soft Matter Physics Divison, Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics, University of Leipzig, Germany

The interaction between tumors and the extracellular matrix is an important factor during cancer progression. Most experimental assays that are used to study this interaction are rather designed with single cells or have a complex three-dimensional structure.

Here, we present a simple, but efficient setup to characterize how model tumors interact with their surroundings. To mimic the physiological conditions in a more realistic manner we use three-dimensional tumor spheroids and put them on collagen matrices to model the extracellular matrix. With this approach our ECM-model gains a third dimension and complex interactions such as three-dimensional cell migration or the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of the ECM are observed. By using multicellular spheroids as model tumors we detect not only the interaction of cell clusters with the ECM but also the different migration modes of cells that left the original spheroid. Still we can use basic brightfield microscopy to measure all of these properties sufficiently.

Our data demonstrate the invasiveness of different cell lines, including healthy epithelial ones, which is characterized by the traction forces and the collective migration behavior of the spheroids on different collagen matrices.