The effect of trapping dynamics of metastatic and mon-metastatic circulating tumor cells on fluid flow in a heterogeneous network

Metastasis is the foremost cause of cancer-related deaths that involves the intricate multistep process of transporting cancer cells through the vascular network. Despite ongoing research efforts, the mechanisms by which cancer cells navigate this complex and heterogeneous network are still not fully understood. This study focuses on investigating the impact of the migration and trapping behaviour of both metastatic and non-metastatic circulating tumour cells (CTCs) on fluid flow in a heterogeneous constriction network, mimicking the vascular capillaries. The study uses both poorly aggressive and non-invasive MCF-7 and aggressive and invasive MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Using a microfluidic model featuring heterogeneous constriction network, we explore how complex velocity fields within the network impacts the migration, trapping, and viability of the two cell types. Simultaneously, we assess how the trapping of cells subsequently affects fluid velocity within these systems. Our results indicate that the migration and trapping behaviour of the more aggressive MDA-MB-231 cells have a lesser impact on fluid flow compared to the behaviour of poorly aggressive MCF-7 cells. In this talk, we will present our analysis on cell trapping profiles, the coupled effect between CTC migration and the fluid flow and viability trends for the referred two cell lines.