The biochemical and biophysical properties of the extracellular matrix (ECM) dictate tissue-specific cell behaviour. The molecules that are associated with the ECM of each tissue, including collagens, proteoglycans, laminins and fibronectin, and the manner in which they are assembled determine the structure and the organization of the resultant ECM. The product is a specific ECM signature that is comprised of unique compositional and topographical features that both reflect and facilitate the functional requirements of the tissue.
Tissue mechanics regulate development and homeostasis and are consistently modified in tumor progression. Nevertheless, the fundamental molecular mechanisms through which altered mechanics regulate tissue behavior and the clinical relevance of these changes remain unclear. We demonstrate that increased matrix stiffness modulates microRNA expression to drive tumor progression through integrin activation of β-catenin and MYC. Specifically, in human and mouse tissue, increased matrix stiffness induced miR-18a to reduce levels of the tumor suppressor PTEN, both directly and indirectly by decreasing levels of HOXA9. Clinically, extracellular matrix stiffness correlated significantly with miR-18a in human breast tumor biopsies. miR-18a expression was highest in basal-like breast cancers in which PTEN and HOXA9 levels were lowest and predicted for poor prognosis in patients with luminal breast cancers. Our findings identify a mechanically-regulated microRNA circuit that can promote malignancy and suggest potential prognostic roles for HOXA9 and miR-18a levels in stratifying patients with luminal breast cancers.
Extracellular matrix stiffness induces focal adhesion assembly to drive malignant transformation and tumor metastasis. Nevertheless, how force alters focal adhesions to promote tumor progression remains unclear. Here, we explored the role of the focal adhesion protein vinculin, a force-activated mechano-transducer, in mammary epithelial tissue transformation and invasion. We found that extracellular matrix stiffness stabilizes the assembly of a vinculin-talin-actin scaffolding complex that facilitates PI3-kinase mediated phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-triphosphate phosphorylation. Using defined two and three dimensional matrices, a mouse model of mammary tumorigenesis with vinculin mutants and a novel super resolution imaging approach, we established that ECM stiffness, per se, promotes the malignant progression of a mammary epithelium by activating and stabilizing vinculin and enhancing Akt signaling at focal adhesions. Our studies also revealed that vinculin strongly co-localizes with activated Akt at the invasive border of human breast tumors, where the ECM is stiffest and we detected elevated mechano-signaling. Thus, extracellular matrix stiffness could induce tumor progression by promoting the assembly of signaling scaffolds; a conclusion underscored by the significant association we observed between highly expressed focal adhesion plaque proteins and malignant transformation across multiple types of solid cancer.
Mammary tumor cells adopt a basal-like phenotype when invading through a dense, stiffened, 3D matrix. These cells exert higher integrin-mediated traction forces, consistent with a physical motor-clutch model, display an altered molecular organization at the nanoscale, and recruit a suite of paxillin-associated proteins implicated in metastasis.
Extracellular matrix (ECM) structure, composition, and stiffness have profound effects on tissue development and pathologies such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. Accordingly, a variety of synthetic hydrogel systems have been designed to study the impact of ECM composition, density, mechanics, and topography on cell and tissue phenotype. However, these synthetic systems fail to accurately recapitulate the biological properties and structure of the native tissue ECM. Natural three dimensional (3D) ECM hydrogels, such as collagen or hyaluronic acid, feature many of the chemical and physical properties of tissue, yet, these systems have limitations including the inability to independently control biophysical properties such as stiffness and pore size. Here, we present a 3D tension bioreactor system that permits precise mechanical tuning of collagen hydrogel stiffness, while maintaining consistent composition and pore size. We achieve this by mechanically loading collagen hydrogels covalently-conjugated to a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane to induce hydrogel stiffening. We validated the biological application of this system with oncogenically transformed mammary epithelial cell organoids embedded in a 3D collagen I hydrogel, either uniformly stiffened or calibrated to create a gradient of ECM stiffening, to visually demonstrate the impact of ECM stiffening on transformation and tumor cell invasion. As such, this bioreactor presents the first tunable 3D natural hydrogel system that is capable of independently assessing the role of ECM stiffness on tissue phenotype.
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