Cancer Cell Migration on 2-D Deformable Substrates

Valentina Peschetola, Claude Verdier, Alain Duperray, and Davide Ambrosi

Contents

9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 9.2 Adjoint Method for Cell Traction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 9.3 Experimental Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 9.4 Determination of Displacements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 9.5 Determination of Traction Stresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 9.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 9.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Cell migration is an important feature of many biological processes such as tissue invasion, the immunologic response, etc. and involves sophisticated mechanisms such as the development of focal adhesions, possible extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation, and activation of the actin-myosin complex to develop forces necessary for traction. Depending on their type and the environment, cells can move according to different types of locomotion, either in 2-D or 3-D. For example, fibroblasts move on a 2-D substrate in the most conventional way, as described by Sheetz [34]: they form a lamellipodium at the front, and develop adhesion complexes so that they can pull on such anchors to detach the rear part and move forward. On the other hand, fish keratocytes migrating on 2-D substrates take the form of a crescent [6,22]. In 3-D, two types of motions have been observed for cancer cells migrating in 3-D collagen, the amoeboid motion and the mesenchymal one [15,16].