The softening of human bladder cancer cells happens at an early stage of the malignancy process

• Jorge R. Ramos,
• Joanna Pabijan,
• Ricardo Garcia and
• Malgorzata Lekka

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 447–457, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.52

• microscopy (AFM), it is possible to determine such changes in a quantitative way in order to distinguish cancerous from non-malignant cells. In the work presented here, the elastic properties of human bladder cells were determined by means of AFM. The measurements show that non-malignant bladder HCV29 cells

• filaments; atomic force microscopy (AFM); bladder cells; cytoskeleton; elastic properties of cells; malignancy degree of cancer cells; Introduction During oncogenic progression, many cancer-related alterations change both the internal structures of cells and also their surroundings, i.e., the extracellular

• cell mechanics, in particular elasticity, and cancer [5][6]. The first measurements showed that cancerous human bladder cells were softer than non-malignant bladder cells. Further measurements of cancerous cells have confirmed that a lowering of the elastic modulus of the cells is a general feature of