ArticleCancer research2011
Mechanical stiffness grades metastatic potential in patient tumor cells and in cancer cell lines.
Article in Cancer research, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 377 papers.
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Who cites it
377 citing papers in PubMed, 737 citations in OpenAlex.
- Single-molecule force spectroscopy of ligand-receptor mechanics at extracellular vesicle biointerfaces.Journal of materials chemistry. B · 2026Article
- Real-Time Monitoring of Mass and Mechanical Properties in Single Cells and Multicellular Spheroids.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Actin conformation dynamics precede force generation in cytotoxic T lymphocytes.Communications biology · 2026Article
- IL-21 boosts T cell-therapy efficacy for solid tumors by enhancing mitochondrial Ca2+-mediated motility of effector CD8+ T cells.Cancer immunology research · 2026Article
- Adipose-mimetic granular hydrogels uncover biophysical cues driving breast cancer invasion.Cell biomaterials · 2026Article
- Deformability screening identifies NUDT5 as a mediator of cellular mechanobiology.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mechanistic insights into cellular deformation enable enhanced extensional-flow cytometry for label-free classification and sorting.Microsystems & nanoengineering · 2026Article
- Mechanobiology of the tumor microenvironment: a review of therapeutic interactions and in vitro elasticity measurement techniques.Journal of biomedical science · 2026Review
- Cells Dynamically Adapt Their Nuclear Volumes and Proliferation Rates During Single to Multicellular Transitions.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Recapitulating patient-to-patient colorectal cancer tumor heterogeneity using patient-derived xenograft cells in an engineered tissue model.Acta biomaterialia · 2026Article
- The Potential Role of Tumor Microorganisms in Remodeling Tumor Biomechanical Signals and Application Strategies in Tumor Therapy.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Cell viscosity influences haematogenous dissemination and metastatic extravasation of tumour cells.Nature materials · 2026Article
- Matrix stress relaxation promotes glioblastoma cell migration in a ligand-specific manner.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Aquaporin-1, aquaporin-3 and aquaporin-5 differentially modulate cell biophysical and biomechanical properties, impacting cell stiffness and cell-cell adhesion.The FEBS journal · 2026Article
- Impact of staining on cell acoustic properties.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- Tumor Metastasis in the Microcirculation.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Mechanical properties of the tumor microenvironment: drivers of immunotherapy resistance in solid tumors.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Cancer cells metastasize in several types of cancer via two distinct routes, probably based on mechanical signals.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Influence of Magneto-Mechanical Stress on Cellular Membranes, Ion Channel Activity, and Gene Expression Dynamics.Results and problems in cell differentiation · 2026Review
- Nanosecond pulsed electric fields induce cell-size-dependent selective permeabilization of urothelial cancer cells.Communications biology · 2025Article
317 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Cancer cells are defined by their ability to invade through the basement membrane, a critical step during metastasis. While increased secretion of proteases, which facilitates degradation of the basement membrane, and alterations in the cytoskeletal architecture of cancer cells have been previously studied, the contribution of the mechanical properties of cells in invasion is unclear. Here, we applied a magnetic tweezer system to establish that stiffness of patient tumor cells and cancer cell lines inversely correlates with migration and invasion through three-dimensional basement membranes, a correlation known as a power law. We found that cancer cells with the highest migratory and invasive potential are five times less stiff than cells with the lowest migration and invasion potential. Moreover, decreasing cell stiffness by pharmacologic inhibition of myosin II increases invasiveness, whereas increasing cell stiffness by restoring expression of the metastasis suppressor TβRIII/betaglycan decreases invasiveness. These findings are the first demonstration of the power-law relation between the stiffness and the invasiveness of cancer cells and show that mechanical phenotypes can be used to grade the metastatic potential of cell populations with the potential for single cell grading. The measurement of a mechanical phenotype, taking minutes rather than hours needed for invasion assays, is promising as a quantitative diagnostic method and as a discovery tool for therapeutics. By showing that altering stiffness predictably alters invasiveness, our results indicate that pathways regulating these mechanical phenotypes are novel targets for molecular therapy of cancer.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.