How Cancer Cells Move And Metastasize Is Influenced By Fluids Surrounding Them
Understanding how tumors migrate can help stop their spread
Cell migration, or how cells move in the body, is essential to both normal body function and disease progression. Cell movement is what allows body parts to grow in the right place during early development, wounds to heal and tumors to become metastatic.
Over the last century, how researchers understood cell migration was limited to the effects of biochemical signals, or chemotaxis, that direct a cell to move from one place to another. For example, a type of immune cell called a neutrophil migrates toward areas in the body that have a higher concentration of a protein called IL-8, which increases during infection.
In the past two or three decades, however, scientists have started to recognize the importance of the mechanical, or physical, factors that play a role in cell migration. For example, human mammary epithelial cells – the cells lining the milk ducts in the breast – migrate toward areas of increasing stiffness when placed on a surface with a stiffness gradient.