Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2015) 130: 64
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15064-x

Regular Article

Osmotic stress affects functional properties of human melanoma cell lines

¹ Department of Biosciences, University of Milano, via Celoria 26, 20133, Milano, Italy
² COMP Centre of Excellence, Aalto University, P.O. Box 14100, FIN-00076, Aalto, Espoo, Finland
³ Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, P.O. Box 14100, FIN-00076, Aalto, Espoo, Finland
⁴ Physics Department, University of Milano, via Celoria 16, 20133, Milano, Italy
⁵ CNR-IENI, Via R. Cozzi 53, 20125, Milano, Italy
⁶ ISI Foundation, Via Alassio 11C, 10126, Torino, Italy
⁷ Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, UPMC Univ Paris 06, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005, Paris, France
⁸ Institut Universitaire de Cancérologie, Faculté de médecine, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, 91 boulevard de l’hôpital, 75013, Paris, France

^* e-mail: benamar@lps.ens.fr

Received: 3 February 2015
Revised: 9 March 2015
Accepted: 9 March 2015
Published online: 7 April 2015

Abstract

Understanding the role of microenvironment in cancer growth and metastasis is a key issue for cancer research. Here, we study the effect of osmotic pressure on the functional properties of primary and metastatic melanoma cell lines. In particular, we experimentally quantify individual cell motility and transmigration capability. We then perform a circular scratch assay to study how a cancer cell front invades an empty space. Our results show that primary melanoma cells are sensitive to a low osmotic pressure, while metastatic cells are less. To better understand the experimental results, we introduce and study a continuous model for the dynamics of a cell layer and a stochastic discrete model for cell proliferation and diffusion. The two models capture essential features of the experimental results and allow to make predictions for a wide range of experimentally measurable parameters.