ArticleCells2023
Measuring Melanoma Nanomechanical Properties in Relation to Metastatic Ability and Anti-Cancer Drug Treatment Using Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy.
Article in Cells, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Correlative SICM-OPM Platform for Surface and Volumetric Imaging in Live Cells.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Characterizing for Subcellular Physical Property Changes of Chemotherapy Drug-Resistant Malignant Cancer Cells.Analytical chemistry · 2025Article
- Nanotechnology meets medicine: applications of atomic force microscopy in disease.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- Machine learning and artificial intelligence: Enabling the clinical translation of atomic force microscopy-based biomarkers for cancer diagnosis.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
A cell's mechanical properties have been linked to cancer development, motility and metastasis and are therefore an attractive target as a universal, reliable cancer marker. For example, it has been widely published that cancer cells show a lower Young's modulus than their non-cancerous counterparts. Furthermore, the effect of anti-cancer drugs on cellular mechanics may offer a new insight into secondary mechanisms of action and drug efficiency. Scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) offers a nanoscale resolution, non-contact method of nanomechanical data acquisition. In this study, we used SICM to measure the nanomechanical properties of melanoma cell lines from different stages with increasing metastatic ability. Young's modulus changes following treatment with the anti-cancer drugs paclitaxel, cisplatin and dacarbazine were also measured, offering a novel perspective through the use of continuous scan mode SICM. We found that Young's modulus was inversely correlated to metastatic ability in melanoma cell lines from radial growth, vertical growth and metastatic phases. However, Young's modulus was found to be highly variable between cells and cell lines. For example, the highly metastatic cell line A375M was found to have a significantly higher Young's modulus, and this was attributed to a higher level of F-actin. Furthermore, our data following nanomechanical changes after 24 hour anti-cancer drug treatment showed that paclitaxel and cisplatin treatment significantly increased Young's modulus, attributed to an increase in microtubules. Treatment with dacarbazine saw a decrease in Young's modulus with a significantly lower F-actin corrected total cell fluorescence. Our data offer a new perspective on nanomechanical changes following drug treatment, which may be an overlooked effect. This work also highlights variations in cell nanomechanical properties between previous studies, cancer cell lines and cancer types and questions the usefulness of using nanomechanics as a diagnostic or prognostic tool.
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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.