Amiri Anahid, Hastert Florian, Stühn Lukas, Dietz Christian
Physics of Surfaces, Institute of Materials Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt Alarich-Weiss-Str. 2 64287 Darmstadt Germany
Cell Biology and Epigenetics, Department of Biology, Technische Universität Darmstadt 64287 Darmstadt Germany.
Nanoscale Adv. 2019 Oct 25;1(12):4853-4862. doi: 10.1039/c9na00021f. eCollection 2019 Dec 3.
The transition of healthy epithelial cells to carcinoma is associated with an alteration in the structure and organization of the cytoskeleton of the cells. A comparison of the mechanical properties of cancerous and healthy cells indicated a higher deformability of the cancer cells based on averaging the mechanical properties of single cells. However, the exact reason for softening of the cancerous cells compared to their counterparts remains unclear. Here, we focused on nanomechanical spectroscopy of healthy and cancerous ductal epithelial-type breast cells by means of atomic force microscopy with high lateral and depth precision. As a result, based on atomic force microscopy measurements formation of significantly fewer microtubules in cancerous cells which was observed in our study is most likely one of the main causes for the overall change in mechanical properties without any phenotypic shift. Strikingly, in a confluent layer of invasive ductal carcinoma cells, we observed the formation of cell-cell junctions that have the potential for signal transduction among neighboring cells such as desmosomes and adherens junctions. This increases the possibility of cancerous cell collaboration in malignancy, infiltration or metastasis phenomena.
健康上皮细胞向癌细胞的转变与细胞细胞骨架结构和组织的改变有关。通过对癌细胞和健康细胞力学特性的比较，基于对单个细胞力学特性的平均，表明癌细胞具有更高的可变形性。然而，与健康细胞相比，癌细胞变软的确切原因仍不清楚。在此，我们通过具有高横向和深度精度的原子力显微镜，聚焦于健康和癌性导管上皮型乳腺细胞的纳米力学光谱分析。结果，基于原子力显微镜测量，我们研究中观察到癌细胞中微管形成显著减少，这很可能是机械性能整体变化而无任何表型转变的主要原因之一。引人注目的是，在浸润性导管癌细胞的汇合层中，我们观察到形成了细胞间连接，这些连接有可能在相邻细胞之间进行信号转导，如桥粒和黏着连接。这增加了癌细胞在恶性、浸润或转移现象中协作的可能性。
