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EDITORS’ PICKS 2021

Elongated cells in 3D clusters are more motile

Nature Reviews Physics volume 4, page 11 (2022)Cite this article

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Cancer cells perform a balancing act between forming a mechanically stable cluster and staying mobile enough that the tumour can spread. Although it is well-established that in 2D layers of cells tissue fluidity correlates to cell elongation, the situation is less clear in 3D. Steffen Grosser and colleagues compared sub-millimetre spherical clusters of healthy cells and cancerous cells, tracking both the overall motion of the clusters and the shapes and trajectories of individual cells. The clusters of healthy cells behaved like solids with an outer liquid-like layer, whereas the cancer cells behaved like fluid droplets, and exhibited much less difference between the centre and outer parts of the cluster. Cells that were moving were also more elongated than those at rest, and had more elongated nuclei. The experiments don’t establish whether motion causes cells to elongate, or if they elongate in order to move. But either way, the shape changes could be measured in conventional cell imaging that doctors already perform on cancer patients, and potentially used to predict whether the cancer will spread.

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Original article

  • Grosser, S. et al. Cell and nucleus shape as an indicator of tissue fluidity in carcinoma. Phys. Rev. X 11, 011033 (2021)

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  1. Nature Reviews Physics https://www.nature.com/natrevphys/

    Zoe Budrikis

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  1. Zoe Budrikis
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Correspondence to Zoe Budrikis.

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Budrikis, Z. Elongated cells in 3D clusters are more motile. Nat Rev Phys 4, 11 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-021-00418-y

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