がん細胞浸潤挙動に対する細胞外基質弾性率の影響

抄録

Cancer cells are known to lead human death, but they are difficult to treat. The reason is that the mechanism of metastasis has not been elucidated. Since cancer cells are known to induce the hardening and moving surrounding tissues i.e. extracellular matrix (ECM), this study aimed to increase the elastic modulus of ECM without changing the density of collagen fibers. The crosslinking agent (EDCNHS) was used for this purpose. By making collagen gel with administering the crosslinking agent, it was succeeded to increase the elastic modulus of ECM up to 5 times approximately than the case without crosslinking agent. Based on this result, it is possible to observe the infiltration behavior of cancer cells with the difference of elastic modulus under three-dimensional culture by enclosing cancer cells in the collagen gel.