Most investigations into cancer have focused on chemical signals, but a new research study provides rare insight into how mechanical force can regulate cellular behavior.
The study uncovers a link between tissue tension and tumor formation, suggesting that the stiffness of a tissue can influence molecular signals that promote the malignant behavior of tumor cells. The findings, published in the September issue of Cancer Cell, provide exciting new insight into the mechanisms that link the tissue microenvironment with tumorigenesis, and may identify new targets for tumor therapies.
Tumors are more rigid than normal tissues, and palpation of compliant tissues to look for a rigid tissue mass has been used as a method of cancer detection for some time. However, the relationship between tissue stiffness and the behavior of tumor cells is not well understood. Dr. Valerie M. Weaver, from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues examined cancer cells developing within a three-dimensional gel system in which rigidity could be carefully controlled to look at how tissue stiffening might drive malignant behavior of cancer cells.