BPCPPDYSOE21 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 1: Cell Mechanics I
BP 1.2: Vortrag
Montag, 22. März 2021, 09:20–09:40, BPa
The dynamics of burst-like collective migration in 3D cancer spheroids — •Swetha Raghuraman1, Raphael Wittkowski2, and Timo Betz1 — 1Institute of Cell Biology, ZMBE, Münster, Germany — 2Center for Soft Nanoscience
Collective migration of cells is a striking behavior observed during morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer cell invasion. Spherical aggregates of cells are known to migrate in 3D matrices like collagen, matrigel or fibronectin in-vitro. Although biochemical signaling is a main research focus, the biophysical properties of the spheroid leading to an invasion is less explored. We observe a striking phenotypical difference when HeLa cervical cancer spheroids were embedded in different concentrations of collagen I matrices. HeLa spheroids in lower collagen concentration (LCC) 0.5 mg/ml, displayed an explosion invasion-like behavior within 6 hours, while those in higher collagen concentration (HCC) 2.5 mg/ml were consistently growing over 48 hours, without any invasion like behavior. The migration dynamics of cells in HCC were more fluid-like with lower velocity as compared to the burst-like phenotype in LCC, which showed higher velocity and super diffusive characteristics. We hypothesize that in LCC, spheroids generate an increased pressure due to a volume increase when they fail to engage rigid ECM contacts because of the soft environment. The volume increase then pushed the cells into the soft regions of the ECM, which tends to be inhomogeneous at the LCC. We believe that such mechanical interplay can pave the way to understand migration behavior of cancer cells with respect to their biophysical properties.