Mechanical softness: a true stemness feature for cancer cells

Jiadi Lv; Yuying Liu; Bo Huang

doi:10.1080/23723556.2021.1882285

Mechanical softness: a true stemness feature for cancer cells

Mol Cell Oncol. 2021 Feb 16;8(2):1882285. doi: 10.1080/23723556.2021.1882285.

Authors

Jiadi Lv¹, Yuying Liu¹, Bo Huang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Immunology & National Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
² Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Developing a method that can effectively define and sort cancer stem cells (CSCs) is extremely desirable. Mechanical stiffness is of paramount importance for a cell to differentiate and can reflect the differentiation state of cells. In line with this notion, cell softness is identified to be a unique marker for highly tumorigenic CSCs.

Keywords: B-cell CLL/lymphoma 9-like (BCL9L); Cancer stem cells (CSCs); marker; softness.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [81788101];Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) Initiative for Innovative Medicine (CAMS-I2M) [2016-I2M-1-007];Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) Initiative for Innovative Medicine (CAMS-I2M) [2020-I2M-CoV19-007];