Phosphorescence-based O2 sensing reveals size-dependent survival and motility of metastatic prostate cancer cells in self-generated hypoxia

Phosphorescence-based O2 sensing reveals size-dependent survival and motility of metastatic prostate cancer cells in self-generated hypoxia

Blog Article

Summary: Cancer cells in solid tumors experience hypoxia, a condition of low O2 concentration, since Celiac their O2 demand exceeds the supply from the surrounding vasculature.However, how these cells adapt to hypoxia requires further elucidation.Here, we use a transparent phosphorescent thin film to visualize the self-generated hypoxia field of prostate cancer cells and quantify local O2 consumption rates, measured locally as the Laplacian of the O2 field.Single-cell tracking on steep O2 gradients revealed that larger cells exhibit higher Vintage Parts motility and moderate migration bias toward O2-rich regions.Termination of hypoxia before cessation of O2 consumption shifted cell distributions to larger sizes, whereas prolonged hypoxia induced apoptosis, producing cell populations of smaller areas post-hypoxia.

Such resilience to hypoxia was absent for noncancerous fibroblasts.Our findings suggest that larger PC3 cells have enhanced metabolic fitness under hypoxia, identifying these cells as potential targets of cancer therapy.