Report on the Studies of Adhesion Forces between Cancer Cells at the Institute of Physiology II at the University of Munster

摘要

JPK Instruments reports on the current cancer research project of Dr Florian T Ludwig at the Institute of Physiology II, University Hospital Munster, who uses a CellHesion 200 to measure the adhesive forces between tumour cells. Dr Florian T Ludwig is a member of the team of Professor Albrecht Schwab and Dr Christian Stock. These researchers are interested in how ion transport across the plasma membrane affects tumour cell motility and, thus, metastasis. Occurring prior to migration and invasion, one early step of the so-called metastatic cascade is the detachment of single tumour cells or cell clusters from the primary neoplasm. This process is accompanied by a controlled loss of cell-cell adhesions caused by the release of bonds between adhesion molecules such as cadherins. Hence, the adhesion force between tumour cells might predict the tumour's malignancy. Tumour cells that exhibit low cell-cell adhesion forces would represent a highly metastatic phenotype since they detach more easily.