Figure 7.

SW620 cells were seeded at densities 250 × 10³ cells/cm² onto 1.5 and 4.0 mg/mL collagen I gels. ROCK-1 was knocked down via siRNA to study the impact of ROCK-I on cell invasion in a low- and high-density environment. Increasing collagen density resulted in a 2.5-fold increase in cell proliferation for the untransfected condition but only a 1.6-fold increase for those where ROCK-I expression was silenced. ROCK-I knockdown resulted in a 50% decrease in cell proliferation in cells in 4.0 mg/mL collagen I scaffolds.