Rapid Plastic Deformation of Cancer Cells Correlates with High Metastatic Potential. Issue 8 (17th January 2022) - Yan, Zishen
Abstract: Metastasis plays a crucial role in tumor development, however, lack of quantitative methods to characterize the capability of cells to undergo plastic deformations has hindered the understanding of this important process. Here, a microfluidic system capable of imposing precisely controlled cyclic deformation on cells and therefore probing their viscoelastic and plastic characteristics is developed. Interestingly, it is found that significant plastic strain can accumulate rapidly in highly invasive cancer cell lines and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from late‐stage lung cancer patients with a characteristic time of a few seconds. In constrast, very little irreversible deformation is observed in the less invasive cell lines and CTCs from early‐stage lung cancer patients, highlighting the potential of using the plastic response of cells as a novel marker in future cancer study. Furthermore, author showed that the observed irreversible deformation should originate mainly from cytoskeleton damage, rather than plasticity of the cell nucleus. Abstract : A novel system capable of imposing precisely controlled cyclic deformation on cells and therefore probing their plastic characteristics is developed. The authors show that significant plastic strain can accumulate in highly invasive cancer cell lines and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from late‐stage lung cancer patients whereas almost no irreversible deformation takes place in the non‐metastatic cell lines or early‐stage CTCs.