Advances in mechanical biomarkers

Abstract

Mechanical biomarkers distinguish health conditions through quantitative mechanical measurements. The emergence and establishment of nanotechnology in the last decades have provided new tools to obtain mechanical biomarkers at the nanoscale.Mechanical measurements are reproducible, label-free, start to be applied in vivo can be high throughput, and require small samples. Mechanical protocols in clinical practice at the macro scale like palpation or blood pressure measurement are routinely used by medical doctors. Nanotechnology brought mechanical sensing to the next scale, where cells, tissues, and proteins can be probed and linked to medical conditions. Mechanical changes in cells and tissues may be detected before other markers, such as protein expression, providing an important advantage as biomarkers. In the present review, we explore the biomarker's historical evolution, describe mechanical biomarkers on various diseases and novel discoveries in the nanomechanical field for their characterization. We conclude that mechanical biomarkers are establishing novel hallmarks in diseases, in several cases for early diagnostics of diseases and discovery of drug targets in the proteins involved in the mechanical changes, while advances in instrumentation are bringing commercial products into the clinical practice. Mechanical biomarkers along with clinical testing are establishing an important niche in the market, whose demand is increasing due to the expansion of personalized medicine and unmet needs in the clinics.

Atomic Force Microscopy for the Study of Cell Mechanics in Pharmaceutics

“…The overseen significance of cell mechanics in pharmaceutics comes in part from the fact that pathological cells can change their stiffness (most famously cancer cells) [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ], meaning that efficacy can be measured through cell mechanics and that drug delivery systems can be designed to target a characteristic mechanical property [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Even the mechanical environment of a cell can affect drug efficacy [ 10 ].…”

Multiscale Rheology of Aging Cancer Spheroids

“…The field of mechanobiology has garnered increasing attention in recent years. The quantification of the viscoelastic properties of cells and tissues has helped understand cellular fate [1], tissue formation [2], and provided ways to distinguish between healthy and diseased cells [3]. Mechanomarkers have also shown promise in studying tissuelevel pathologies [4,5]: for example, nanoindentation devices used for breast tumor screening have reached the stage of clinical trials [6].…”

“…Mechanomarkers have also shown promise in studying tissuelevel pathologies [4,5]: for example, nanoindentation devices used for breast tumor screening have reached the stage of clinical trials [6]. The majority of studies concerning mechanobiology have been conducted at either the single cell or tissue level, using various methods including atomic force microscopy (AFM), micro-indentation, optical tweezers, magnetic twisting, optical stretching, micropipette aspiration, acoustic radiation and scattering and Brillouin microscopy [3]. Although the usage of spheroids has considerably increased in recent years for studying cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions in 3D, as well as the interplay between cells, ECM mechanics and drug diffusion and effectiveness [7][8][9][10], they are only partially explored in this field.…”