Establishing the Design Principles to Control the Directional Cell Motility on Material Surface Topographies

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26870166
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cell biology; Nano/Microsystems
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Kushiro Keiichiro 東京大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 助教 (90632539)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): TAKAI Madoka 東京大学, 大学院工学系研究科, 教授 (40287975) ; RYO Akihide 横浜市立大学, 大学院医学研究科, 教授 (20363814)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: マイクロトポグラフィー / ハイドロゲル / 細胞移動 / 癌

Outline of Final Research Achievements

During metastasis, cancer cells migrate through various microstructures in the body, but the mechanical influence of these structures or the underlying mechanism have not been clarified. From previous works of the representative, it was shown that microgroove structures can enhance the motility of normal epithelial cells. Here, the possibility of controlling the migration of cancer cells using such "topography effect" was investigated. It was found that various cancer cells are unable to form stable cytoskeleton, and thus receive less topographical cues, resulting in interesting behaviors of cancer cells, such as the climbing of cancerous cells over the walls, which was not seen for normal cells. These observations are important discoveries in the context of cancer metastasis because they suggest that cancer cells can ignore the mechanical signals from the microstructures within the body and migrate to any part of the body, possibly facilitating their escape from immune cells.

Free Research Field

細胞移動・マイクロデバイス・細胞工学・バイオマテリアル