Flow and deformation of tumor spheroids through constricted microchannels

The viscoelastic properties of cancer cells play a key role in tumor growth and invasion during metastasis. To understand and ultimately prevent metastasis, we need to understand how tumor cells interact physically with their environment, both as individual cells and collectively. Nowadays, tumor spheroids have become powerful cellular models to investigate the biomechanics of tumors (from stiffness to deformability). There is an urgent need to characterize the viscoelastic features of tumor spheroids (from stiffness to viscosity and deformability) in a high-throughput manner. Recently, we have developed new microfluidics platforms to characterize the mechanical responses of spheroids through a constricted channel. We have demonstrated that many spheroids (~50-80 spheroids) can be aspirated on a chip for multiple runs per day. We have tested this microfluidic device for different types of cells (from healthy to malignant and metastatic cells). Finally, we have found that the deformability and rheology of tumor spheroids can be correlated to the metastatic potential of tumor spheroids. Importantly, these microfluidics platforms were also used to characterize the deformability and plastic response of various spheroids under various flow conditions. We believe that these microfluidic devices allow us to provide new insights into a biophysical understanding of tumorigenesis and mechanically phenotype tumor cells for cancer metastasis.