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Mechanobiology of Disease
Poster Abstracts
75
11-POS
Board 11
The Effect of Fluid Shear Stress on the Migration Capability of Tumor Cells in Circulating
System
Yen-Chih Chen
1
, Yi-Fang Wang
2
, Yin-Quan Chen
3
, Arthur Chiou
1,3
, Muh-Hwa Yang
4,5,6
.
1
Institute of Biophotonics, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan,
2
Faculty of
Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan,
3
Biophotonics and Molecular
Imaging Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan,
4
Institute of Clinical
Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan,
5
Genome Research Center, National
Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan,
6
Division of Medical Oncology, Taipei Veterans
General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
During cancer metastasis, cancer cells separate from the primary tumor, invade through tissues
and penetrate through their basement membranes, enter into the blood vessels, circulate in the
blood vessels, exit the circulation system, reach other organs, and then initiating secondary
tumor. In general, the migration capability of cancer cells is often strongly correlated with their
metastatic potential. In our research, we focus on cancer cells entering the circulatory system and
flowing in the bloodstream. In circulating system, fluidic shear stress may play an important role
in metastasis of cancer cells. In our study, we designed and used a biomimetic shear flow system
with a fluid shear stress ~10 dyne/cm
2
, (which is within the range of the typical value of fluid
shear stress encountered by cells circulating in the blood vessels) to investigate the effect of
shear stress on the migration capability of cancer cells in vitro. We quantified, via would healing
assay, the effect of fluid shear stress on the migration capability of two cell lines of head and
neck squamous cell, namely, OECM-1 (mesenchymal phenotype) and FaDu (epithelial
phenotype), as the potential indicator for cancer metastasis. Our results indicated that fluid shear
flow within physiological range (10 dyne/cm
2
) significantly enhances the migration capability of
OECM-1; in contrast, it has much smaller effect on FaDu. These findings suggest that fluid shear
flow may promote metastasis potential of mesenchymal cancer cells.