Tumor spheroids accelerate persistently invading cancer cells

Abstract

Glioblastoma brain tumors form in the brain’s white matter and remain one of the most lethal cancers despite intensive therapy and surgery. The complex morphology of these tumors includes infiltrative growth and gain of cell motility. Therefore, various brain-mimetic model systems have been developed to investigate invasion dynamics. Despite this, exactly how gradients of cell density, chemical signals and metabolites influence individual cells’ migratory behavior remains elusive. Here we show that the gradient field induced by the spheroid—accelerates cells’ invasion of the extracellular matrix. We show that cells are pushed away from the spheroid along a radial gradient, as predicted by a biased persistent random walk. Thus, our results grasp in a simple model the complex behavior of metastasizing cells. We anticipate that this well-defined and quantitative assay could be instrumental in the development of new anti-cancer strategies.