Increased plasticity of the stiffness of melanoma cells correlates with their acquisition of metastatic properties

Cancer cells become less deformable and more invasive with activation of β-adrenergic signaling

“…However, our findings show that βAR signaling results in less deformable cells that are more invasive. Our results are in agreement with previous observations showing that a cell line derived from a metastatic melanoma is stiffer than cell lines derived from earlier stages in melanoma progression (Liu et al, 2015;Rathje et al, 2014;Weder et al, 2014). One possible origin of the increased stiffness in βAR-activated cells might be the altered organization of the actin cytoskeleton.…”

Cell stiffness determined by atomic force microscopy and its correlation with cell motility

“…Although these existing results about the correlation between cell stiffness and the capability of motility are contradictory, it is interesting to note that the data based on cell lines generated from normal and malignant tissues tended to be consistent that the more invasive cancer cells with a lower Young's modulus, except one group who observed an opposite result in a study on prostate cancer cells [13] and two papers concluding that there was no predictive correlation between motility and stiffness [14,15]. A large difference exists between the studies that assessed the stiffness of cells with modified motility through pharmacological treatment or genetic modification, and cells with higher motility were demonstrated to be softer [8][9][10][16][17][18][19], stiffer [20][21][22][23][24] or unaltered [15] in different studies.…”

“…A large difference exists between the studies that assessed the stiffness of cells with modified motility through pharmacological treatment or genetic modification, and cells with higher motility were demonstrated to be softer [8][9][10][16][17][18][19], stiffer [20][21][22][23][24] or unaltered [15] in different studies. Additionally, the values of Young's modulus of the same cell line vary greatly between different investigations [16,25,26], suggesting a great influence of methodological issues on the data obtained by AFM, which will be discussed in the next section.…”

Quantifying cellular mechanics and adhesion in renal tubular injury using single cell force spectroscopy

“…The criteria and assumption for applying this model to biological material are described elsewhere. [14][15][16][17] However, it has been well recognized that the Hertz model often overestimates the elasticity of cells due to substrate effects. Alternatively, the classic Hertz model which was modified by Chen to take account of the influence of the substrate to the measured elasticity may be applied for modelling the cell indentation tests.…”