Mechanical interactions between cells and their microenvironment dictate cell phenotype and behavior, calling for cell mechanics measurements in three-dimensional (3D) extracellular matrices (ECM). Here we describe a novel technique for quantitative mechanical characterization of soft, heterogeneous samples in 3D. The technique is based on the integration of atomic force microscopy (AFM) based deep indentation, confocal fluorescence microscopy, finite element (FE) simulations and analytical modeling. With this method, the force response of a cell embedded in 3D ECM can be decoupled from that of its surroundings, enabling quantitative determination of the elastic properties of both the cell and the matrix. We applied the technique to the quantification of the elastic properties of metastatic breast adenocarcinoma cells invading into collagen hydrogels. We found that actively invading and fully embedded cells are significantly stiffer than cells remaining on top of the collagen, a clear example of phenotypical change in response to the 3D environment. Treatment with Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK) inhibitor significantly reduces this stiffening, indicating that actomyosin contractility plays a major role in the initial steps of metastatic invasion.

The process, how lipids are removed from the circulation and transferred from high density lipoprotein (HDL) – a main carrier of cholesterol in the blood stream – to cells, is highly complex. HDL particles are captured from the blood stream by the scavenger receptor, class B, type I (SR-BI), the so-called HDL receptor. The details in subsequent lipid-transfer process, however, have not yet been completely understood. The transfer has been proposed to occur directly at the cell surface across an unstirred water layer, via a hydrophobic channel in the receptor, or after HDL endocytosis. The role of the target lipid membrane for the transfer process, however, has largely been overlooked. Here, we studied at the single molecule level how HDL particles interact with synthetic lipid membranes. Using (high-speed) atomic force microscopy and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) we found out that, upon contact with the membrane, HDL becomes integrated into the lipid bilayer. Combined force and single molecule fluorescence microscopy allowed us to directly monitor the transfer process of fluorescently labelled amphiphilic lipid probe from HDL particles to the lipid bilayer upon contact.