Capillary bifurcations mechanically dissociate clusters of tumor cells
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Au, Sam
Vrynas, Angelos
Chen, Aisher
Kontaxi, Georgia
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters are major drivers of cancer metastasis, possessing higher metastatic potential than equal numbers of single CTCs. While their ability to traverse linear capillary segments has been studied, their transit behaviors in capillary bifurcations remain poorly understood. We utilized live-cell imaging and microfluidic devices that replicate the diverse geometries of human capillary bifurcations to investigate the transit dynamics of breast cancer clusters. We demonstrate that clusters dissociate into smaller clusters and single cells and that this phenomenon is strongly influenced by geometric features of equal and small-sized daughter channels in capillary bifurcations. Moreover, inhibition of actin polymerization increases both the frequencies of cluster dissociation and cell lysis during cluster transit in capillary bifurcations. Overall, our findings suggest that capillary biomechanics and actin filament polymerization affect the integrity of CTC clusters.
Date Issued
2026-05-01
Date Acceptance
2026-04-29
Citation
PNAS Nexus, 2026, 5 (5)
ISSN
2752-6542
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Journal / Book Title
PNAS Nexus
Volume
5
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of National Academy of Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag166
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
pgag166
Date Publish Online
2026-05-14