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Control cells

Posted by sramdas on 05 Jul 2012 at 21:05 GMT

Were any control non-cancerous cells tested for irregular cell division? Do we know this is merely a property of cancerous cell lines?

No competing interests declared.

RE: Control cells

henrytse replied to sramdas on 06 Jul 2012 at 01:35 GMT

Thank you for the question.

We had tested diploid 3T3s in the device at the high confinement condition (3um gap) with a 130kPa substrate. No observations of successful mitosis were made. The cells would contract to signal the start of mitosis, but arrested at this stage and subsequently died soon after.
The ability of cancer cell lines to undergo multi-daughter divisions spontaneously has been observed in literature. However, the rate at which this device induces the generation of multi-daughter divisions is an order of magnitude above what has been reported for HeLa cells. We believe that the mechanical microenvironment plays a significant role in tumorigenesis whether initiation or advancement, this study motivates additional work to explore the relationship of mechanical environments and the maintenance of cellular processes.

No competing interests declared.