Table 1.

Mechanical effects on CSCs

Model	Mechanical environment	Outcome
HCC culture on polyacrylamide gels 58	Substrate stiffness: 6-16 kPa	HCCs show higher stemness on the 16 kPa substrate gels
HCC culture on polyacrylamide gels 49	Substrate stiffness: 1-10 kPa	HCCs show higher stemness on 1 kPa substrate gels
Breast cancer cell culture on polyacrylamide gels and hypoxic environment 50	Substrate stiffness: 0.13-4.02 kPa	Stiffness and hypoxic factors promote the development of breast CSCs
Colorectal cancer culture on Polyacrylamide gels 51	Substrate stiffness: 2-20 kPa	HCT-116 cells show higher numbers of CSC markers with increasing stiffness of gels
Melanoma CSC culture on 3D fibrin gels 52	Gel stiffness: 90-1050 Pa	CSCs have a better ability to maintain stem cell characteristics on a softer matrix stiffness
Ovarian carcinoma cell culture on a poly-HEMA-coated microfluidic channel 59	Shear stress: 0.002-0.02 dyne/cm2	Ovarian cancer cells acquired the expression of EMT and CSC markers with 0.02 dyne/cm2 shear stress
Breast cancer cell culture in a computational fluid dynamics module 78	Shear stress: 20-60 dyne/cm2	MCF7 cells show high numbers of CSC marker under shear stress compared with a static state
Liver CSC culture on a parallel-plated flow chamber system 84	Shear stress: 2 dyne/cm2	Liver CSC stemness is reduced under shear stress via the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway
Tumor culture on a stress clamp 85	Compressive stress: 5-10 kPa	Tumour sphere volume is reduced under compressive stress