Is Extracellular Matrix a pressure sensor?

by Giovanni Cappello (Università Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique, CNRS, F-38000 Grenoble, France)

Tuesday 13 Mar 2018, 13:00 → 14:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Majorana (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

Constrained by the surrounding tissues, solid tumors grow under stress. To evaluate the effect of this stress, we grow multicellular cancer aggregates under mechanical pressure. We observe that a gentle compression (500 Pa) drastically reduces cell proliferation, while it has no effect on individual cells. A major difference between cells and aggregates is the presence of Extracellular Matrix (ECM). We thus consider aggregates as composite materials, made of stiff cells and permeable ECM. We observe that the selective compression of ECM determines both the mechanical and the biological response of an aggregate to mechanical stimuli. We conclude that the ECM acts as a pressure sensor.