ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the importance of cellular ability to deform and to adhere with the focus on atomic force microscopy (AFM)-related aspects in cancer studies. The capability to measure the cellular deformability enables to monitor changes occurring within cell populations under influence of chemical compounds added to culture medium. This has been demonstrated in studies showing a correlation between cell stiffness and glycolytic activity as a function of various chitosan deacetylation degrees. Cancer cells have been shown to possess altered mechanosensitivity manifested in distinct mechanical response to various substrate stiffness. The altered mechanosensitivity of cancerous cells is attributed to their mesenchymal phenotype, which they acquire during cancer progression. During cancer progression, ovarian cancer cells acquire ability to penetrate into blood vessels and to migrate to distant tissues where they form another tumor site. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) working in force spectroscopy mode has become an essential tool to study single molecule and /or single-cell interactions in a quantitative manner.
