Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting | Singapore

Mechanobiology of Disease

Poster Abstracts

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.

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