ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Genetic variation drives cancer cell adaptation to ECM stiffness.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 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
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- The role of ECM mechanics in cancer mechanotransduction through unraveling the molecular machinery of integrins, FAK, and YAP signaling.Cellular & molecular biology letters · 2026Review
- Transformative biomechanics and mechanobiology breakthroughs shaping the future of health and medicine.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2026Review
- 3D environment favors persistent changes in cell functions and altered morphology, wrinkling, and biomechanical signature of the nucleus.Cell reports. Physical science · 2026Article
- Extracellular matrix stiffness conditions glioblastoma cells for long-term migration: Mechanical memory as a driver of invasion and recurrence in glioblastoma.Neuro-oncology · 2026Review
- Is there a link between fascia and cancer? From potential mechanisms to future treatment options.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Review
- Multi-omics investigation reveals molecular determinants of cancer cell evolution on soft extracellular matrix.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Semaphorin 5A modulates focal adhesion pathway and lamellipodia formation in melanoma.Cell communication and signaling : CCS · 2025Article
- Local soft niches in mechanically heterogeneous primary tumors promote brain metastasis via mechanotransduction-mediated HDAC3 activity.Science advances · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The progression of many solid tumors is accompanied by temporal and spatial changes in the stiffness of the extracellular matrix (ECM). Cancer cells adapt to soft and stiff ECM through mechanisms that are not fully understood. It is well known that there is significant genetic heterogeneity from cell to cell in tumors, but how ECM stiffness as a parameter might interact with that genetic variation is not known. Here, we employed experimental evolution to study the response of genetically variable and clonal populations of tumor cells to variable ECM stiffness. Proliferation rates of genetically variable populations cultured on soft ECM increased over a period of several weeks, whereas clonal populations did not evolve. Tracking of DNA barcoded cell lineages revealed that soft ECM consistently selected for the same few variants. These data provide evidence that ECM stiffness exerts natural selection on genetically variable tumor populations. Soft-selected cells were highly migratory, with enriched oncogenic signatures and unusual behaviors such as spreading and traction force generation on ECMs with stiffness as low as 1 kPa. Rho-regulated cell spreading was found to be the directly selected trait, with yes-associated protein 1 translocation to the nucleus mediating fitness on soft ECM. Overall, these data show that genetic variation can drive cancer cell adaptation to ECM stiffness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.