The effects of hypoxia on cancer cell motility and on cell size

We investigate the effects of hypoxia on cancer cell motility (as a potential indicator of EMT) and on cell size (as a potential indicator of PACC formation). In particular, we subject cancer cells to self-generated hypoxia, that is, hypoxic conditions resulting from the cancer cells' own metabolism, closely resembling the process that occurs naturally in tumors. Previous studies have attempted to create hypoxic conditions by either purging the cell environment of oxygen or by using cobalt chloride. However, the former method suffers from an inability to create oxygen gradients which are crucially present in tumors and the latter method is merely mimetic: it induces a hypoxia-like response in cells by stabilizing certain protein factors but does not physically decrease ambient oxygen levels. Lastly, both methods are externally imposed rather than emergent from the tumor itself, giving uncertainty to the applicability of the observed cell responses to the behavior of cells in real tumors.