Quantification of intracellular mechanical fields in invasive cancer cells using digital volume correlation, confocal...

Cell invasion process, which appears in the progression of tumours, such as glioblastoma, is highly dependent on cellular mobility. Cellular movement results from the interaction of chemical, biological and mechanical factors both inside and outside the invasive cancer cell. To identify and understand the relationship between these factors, it is necessary to quantify and visualise the extra- and intracellular kinematic fields during cell movement. This study proposes a new methodology for the experimental measurement of full kinematic fields inside cancer cells and the use of a digital twin simulation of the cell to obtain the stress and force fields. Confocal microscopy, Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) and Finite Element Method (FEM) are used in this methodology. To demonstrate the efficiency of this approach, highly invasive glioblastoma cells have been used as a model.