Figure 1.

The interactions between the external mechanical environment and the intrinsic mechanoresponsive machinery. During different stages of cancer progression, cancer cells experience various external mechanical inputs, starting from ECM stiffness and tension, but these mechanical inputs progressively expand to include fluid shear stress and cell-cell collisions and interactions as cancer progresses. While these forces have significant impact on gene expression and the development of cancer cells, these cells also harbor an intrinsic mechanoresponsive machinery that endows the cells with the ability to sense and respond to these mechanical stimuli. For a Figure360 author presentation of this figure, see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2022.04.039.