title: Dissipation monitoring for assessing EGF-induced changes of cell adhesion.
abstract: Epidermal growth factor (EGF)-induced cell de-adhesion has been implicated as a critical step of normal embryonic development, wound repair, inflammatory response, and tumor cell metastasis. Like many other cellular processes, this cell de-adhesion exhibits a complex, time-dependent pattern. A comprehensive understanding of this process requires a quantitative, real-time assessment of cell-substrate interactions at the molecular level. We employed the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) to successfully track the EGF-induced changes in energy dissipation factor, ΔD, of a monolayer of MCF10A cells in real time. This time-dependent ΔD response correlates well both qualitatively and quantitatively with sequential events of a rapid disassembly, transition, and slow reassembly of focal adhesions of the cells in response to EGF exposure. Based on this strong correlation, we utilized the QCM-D to demonstrate that this dynamic focal-adhesion restructuring is regulated temporally by the downstream pathways of EGFR signaling such as the PI3K, MAPK/ERK, and PLC pathways. Because the QCM-D is a noninvasive technique, this novel approach potentially has a broad range of applications in the fundamental study of cellular processes, such as cell signaling and trafficking and mechanotransduction, and holds promise for drug and biomarker screening.
authors: Department of Chemistry, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors: Jennifer Y
authors: JY
authors: Chen
authors: Ammar
authors: A
authors: Shahid
authors: Marcela P
authors: MP
authors: Garcia
authors: Lynn S
authors: LS
authors: Penn
authors: Jun
authors: J
authors: Xi
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D004815:Epidermal Growth Factor / Q000378:metabolism*; D066246:ErbB Receptors / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D022001:Focal Adhesions / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D058525:Quartz Crystal Microbalance Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D004815:Epidermal Growth Factor; D066246:ErbB Receptors