Recent advances in understanding the role of metabolic heterogeneities in cell migration

Abstract

Migration is an energy-intensive, multi-step process involving cell adhesion, protrusion, and detachment. Each of these steps require cells to generate and consume energy, regulating their morphological changes and force generation. Given the need for energy to move, cellular metabolism has emerged as a critical regulator of both single cell and collective migration. Recently, metabolic heterogeneity has been highlighted as a potential determinant of collective cell behavior, as individual cells may play distinct roles in collective migration. Several tools and techniques have been developed and adapted to study cellular energetics during migration including live-cell probes to characterize energy utilization and metabolic state and methodologies to sort cells based on their metabolic profile. Here, we review the recent advances in techniques, parsing the metabolic heterogeneities inherent in cell populations and their contributions to cell migration.

Current hydrogel advances in physicochemical and biological response-driven biomedical application diversity

“… 225 Moreover, cancer cells could dynamically and alternately adapt their metabolism to confinement and non-confinement during their collective migration process. 226 , 227 Collectively, the pore size of hydrogel scaffold is an important indicator or hallmarker for cell biology and fate, and more attention needs to be paid when preparing hydrogel scaffolds objective to some certain application.…”

Microenvironmental stiffness induces metabolic reprogramming in glioblastoma

“… 49 – 51 In contrast, the OXPHOS-weighted metabolism observed in stiff hydrogel cultures correlated with a higher proliferation rate, similar to the hyperproliferative, pseudopalisading regions typically observed near the GBM tumor core, just outside of the necrotic area in patients. 49 This result aligns with the idea that cells, energetically, have the capacity to either “go or grow.” 61 , 62 Previous studies have indicated that migration through a denser matrix, like the stiff hydrogels used here, requires more energy, 63 , 64 a situation in which cells may instead only have sufficient ATP available to proliferate. The decision to migrate or proliferate is governed on the basis of ECM cues.…”

Unravelling cell migration: defining movement from the cell surface

“…They also found a prevalence of lesser motile phenotypes in older individuals. Other recent studies have focused on investigating how metabolic heterogeneities influence cell migration [ 373 ]. Interestingly, some of the chemical and mechanical factors mentioned in this review, such as matrix density, stiffness, fiber alignment, and confinement, influence metabolic plasticity during cancer cell migration [ 374 , 375 ].…”