Cell News 04/2019
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MEETING REPORT
Second day:
The day started in the morning with a focus session on
cancer
cells and tumors in mechanical confinement. Anna Tauben-
berger
presented here work on how 3D microenvironment
stiffness regulates tumor spheroid growth and mechanics via
p21 and ROCK. She could show a mechanism by which the
growth of a tumor spheroid can be regulated via cytoskeleton
rearrangements in response to its mechanoenvironment. She
thereby provided new insight into how cancer cells react to
compressive stress when growing under confinement in stiff
environments.
Timo Betz
talked about 3D motion of cancer
cells in confined space reporting burst-like outgrowth of tumor
spheroids driven by cellular contractility.
Kandice Tanner
gave
a much-applauded talk about the role of tissue biophysics
in organ selectivity in metastasis discussing how mechanical
cues may influence disseminated tumor cells in different organ
microenvironments.
After lunch, the conference program was continued by a focus
session on
tumor-stroma interactions
. Another impressive talk
was given by
Johanna Ivaska
on adhesion regulated mecha-
notransduction in cancer. She described her recent findings
on the interrelationship between cancer cell mediated ECM
remodelling and ECM induced mechanochemical signals reg-
ulating transcription of growth promoting pathways in cancer
cells.
Claudia Fischbach-Teschl
talked about organic and
inorganic ECM components as synergistic regulators of cancer
mechanosignaling. Her results indicated that interactions
with mineralized collagen can promote stem-like properties of
breast cancer cells, which, in turn, are associated with resis-
tance to chemotherapy.
In the afternoon of the second conference day, all invited
speakers were offered to visit a private
concert of the Barock
ensemble “Camerata Bachiensis”
in the rooms of the historical
building “alte Handelsbörse” in Leipzig. Afterwards, the partic-
ipants were invited to join a boat trip from the city harbour to
the restaurant "Stelzenhaus" where the conference dinner was
served.
Third day:
The first session of this day was dedicated to
cellular mech-
anosensing. Dennis Discher
presented his beautiful work on
how nuclear rupture, e.g. during cell migration through narrow
constrictions, may lead to defects in DNA repair to affect cell
cycle, differentiation, and genome variation. In the second
ses-
sion on translation research, Ingolf Sack
introduced us to his
interesting research on Magnetic Resonance Elastography - a
medical imaging technique that combines magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) with mechanical vibrations to generate maps of
viscoelastic properties of cancer tissue.
After lunch, the day continued with the last
session on cancer
cell migration. Xavier Trepat
talked about the mechanobiology
of epithelial migration, growth and folding presenting maps
of cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) forces during
cell migration and division in a variety of epithelial models,
from the expanding MDCK cluster to the regenerating zebraf-
ish epicardium. He could show that migration and division in
growing tissues are jointly regulated.
Franziska Lautenschläger
concluded the conference with her talk. She displayed data
showing that vimentin provides the mechanical resilience
required for amoeboid migration and protection of the nucleus.
After some
final remarks by Josef Käs
, the participants joined
the fabulous conference party at "Ratstonne" Moritzbastei
with dinner buffet and live music.
Author: Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich, Excellence cluster Physics
of Life, Biotec, TU Dresden
Acknowledgements
We proudly acknowledge the following supporters of this
year´s symposium:
