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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Cancer Discov. 2011 Jul 1;1(2):144–157. doi: 10.1158/2159-8274.CD-11-0010

FIGURE 6. Cancer cells exert forces on a fibronectin-coated polyacrylamide gel in an α5β1 integrin, talin 1 and myosin-dependent manner.

FIGURE 6

OVCAR5 ovarian cancer cells were plated on a polyacrylamide (PAA) gel substrate coated with fibronectin (10ug/ml). Cells were allowed to adhere to and spread on the PAA substrate and the displacement of fluorescently labeled beads embedded in the substrate was monitored. The strain energy was calculated from measured bead displacement data and used to reconstruct traction stresses. The strain energy is the energy invested by the cells to deform the substrate and a measure for the overall contractility of a cell (37). (A) OVCAR5 cells have low endogenous α5-integrin (ITGA5) expression levels, and are significantly less contractile than OVCAR5 cells overexpressing ITGA5 (p<0.001). The high contractility of ITGA5-overexpressing OVCAR5 cells is attenuated by treatment with 1uM blebbistatin (p<0.001). (B) The contractility of ITGA5-overexpressing OVCAR5 cells can also be significantly attenuated by siRNA-mediated knockdown of Talin 1, but only slightly attenuated by knockdown of Talin II. Bar = 20μm.