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Cell culture

Soft gels select tumorigenic cells

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 662–663 (2012)Cite this article

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Pliable gels of fibrin, a fibrous protein involved in blood clotting and linked to cancer, select cells with high in vivo aggressiveness and 'stemness' from a pool of cancer cells.

Tumours harbour heterogeneous cell populations in varied microenvironments, with cell types that are likely to differ in their sensitivity to the type of matrix and perhaps also to the mechanics of the microenvironment. It is now well established that cells possess tactile mechanisms that allow them to adhere, sense and respond to physical differences in their surroundings. Yet, we are just beginning to understand the mechanisms involved in basic mechanotransduction processes and the impact of the mechanical properties of the matrix on cell fates in vivo. In what is a significant step in this direction, Liu and colleagues report in Nature Materials that among a broad range of soft and stiff gels used for two-dimensional (2D) and 3D cultures, cancer cells grown within highly compliant fibrin gels are by far the most tumorigenic cells when implanted in mice, possibly because of the induction of key pluripotency genes1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jae-Won Shin and Dennis E. Discher are at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia 19104-6315, USA,

    Jae-Won Shin & Dennis E. Discher

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  1. Jae-Won Shin
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  2. Dennis E. Discher
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Correspondence to Dennis E. Discher.

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Shin, JW., Discher, D. Soft gels select tumorigenic cells. Nature Mater 11, 662–663 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3388

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