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The Mechanism Responsible For Mechanically Enhanced Cancer Cell Invasion, Alexander Nicholas Gasparski

Wayne State University Dissertations

Cell invasion is an important process utilized by cancer cells to progress through the metastatic cascade to form deadly secondary tumors. This process can be influenced by the wide array of biomechanical forces that cancer cells within and around a tumor face in their microenvironment. It is not completely clear how these forces, either alone or simultaneously combined with other forces, can impact the metastatic capacity of cancer cells. To address this, we have utilized an in vitro mechano-invasion assay to mimic a transient tugging force that exists within the tumor microenvironment caused by the remodeling of the extracellular matrix …