Poster

Mesenchymal-epithelial transition and its effect on cell mechanics and proliferation in in vitro cancer models

Gina Dimari, Kamran Hosseini, Annika Frenzel, Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich

Technische Universität Dresden, Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life, Mechanics of active biomaterials, Arnoldstrasse 18, 01307, Dresden, Germany

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Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) is a cellular transformation which was shown to be a hallmark in cancer progression. We and others showed previously that EMT can enhance cell proliferation in tumor spheroids in vitro. Furthermore [1,2], our group could show that EMT gives rise to opposite cell-mechanical changes in suspended interphase cells and mitotic cells. While interphase cells become softer and less contractile, mitotic cells become stiffer and more contractile after EMT. This cell-mechanical change in isolated cells was accompanied by a corresponding enhanced mitotic rounding in EMT-transformed tumor spheroids. These findings suggest that there is a connection between cell mechanical properties and cell proliferation in the context of EMT. To further increase our knowledge on that connection, we aim to test the influence of the reverse transition, mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET), on the cell mechanical phenotype as well as cell proliferation. For this purpose, we use MDA-MB231 cells as a model for mesenchymal invasive and migratory breast cancer cells. By exogenous overexpression of the microRNA mir-200c-141 in these cells we were able to restore E-cadherin expression and an epithelial morphology in MDA-MB231 cells. Our future goals in this project are to compare the proliferation and mechanical changes upon MET induction of cells.