Mechanical adaptability of metastatic cells

Cells and tissues in vivo experience both a wide range of mechanical stimuli (hydrostatic pressure, stretching, compression, tensile force, fluid shearing, etc.) and varied mechanical properties of their microenvironment (e.g. stiffness, viscosity). The extent to which cancer cells perceive the mechanics of their surrounding milieu has been reported to influence their behavior thus prompting inquiries into how cells respond to actual biomechanical changes of their extracellular environments. Here, we employ Brillouin Microscopy (BM), a label-free mechanical mapping technique to investigate whether different external mechanical stimuli can induce a mechanosensitive response in cancer cells with varying metastatic potential. We show how different mechanical modulus and viscosity changes are associated with metastatic potential.