Scientists under Dr Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich, group leader at the Excellence Cluster Physics of Life (PoL) and the Biotechnology Center TU Dresden (BIOTEC), studied how cancer cells are able to divide in crowded tumour tissue and connected it to the hall-mark of cancer progression and metastasis, the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT).
The authors identified changes in rounding and growth of the tumour. EMT influenced the cancer cells in two contrasting ways. The dividing tumour cells became stiffer while the surrounding non-dividing cells became softer. Furthermore, the researchers discovered clues that the observed mechanical changes might be linked to the increased activity of a protein called Rac1, a known regulator of the cytoskeleton. "Our findings will not only provide important results to the field of cell biology but may also identify new targets for cancer therapeutics," says Dr. Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich.

Further information