Micro channel for analyzing mechanical adaption of cancer cell

It was reported that cancer cells could biologically respond and adapt to the confined environment during migration in extracellular matrix (ECM). But it is not clearly studied that how cancer cells respond and adapt to confined environment in mechanical way. Thus, in this study, we designed and fabricated a kind of one-layer micro channel to mimic confined environment for analyzing mechanical adaption of cell. This micro channel could apply sequential mechanical stresses on a number of cells with high throughput, and the time of cells passing through five rows of micro channels were used to evaluate their adaptability to the sequential and confined space. In experiments, each cell suffered 20 times of mechanical stresses after passing through 20 squeezing channels arranged in 5 rows. We observed the sequential squeezing processes under microscope and investigated the passing time using a high-speed camera. The preliminary results indicated that cancer cells could pass through and adapt to the confined environment faster than normal cells.