Portrait of a Cell Under Stress

Portrait of a Cell Under Stress

Nazanin Rohani Larijani

MIT Department of Biology, Koch Institute at MIT

This image shows how cell invasive phenotype is affected under low pH conditions. Low extracellular pH is a hallmark of tumor microenvironment. Cells within the tumor microenvironment are exposed to acidic regions, which has been shown to promote growth and metastasis. Such conditions while harsh on normal cells promotes invasion and migration on cancer cells therefor an advantage for tumor cell invasion. In this image, a breast cancer cell becomes highly aggressive and invades the substrates (black puncta) when exposed to stress conditions.

More like this