Quantifying Microtentacle Dynamics for Non-adherent Tumor Cells*

In current cancer medicine, metastasis is still responsible for 90% of fatalities of cancer patients. Disseminated tumor cells reattaching to the blood vessel walls remains a critical and incompletely understood step in metastasis. One of the possible mechanisms for reattachment involves tubulin-based protrusions called microtentacles. It has been hypothesized that microtentacles form due to an imbalance between microtubules and actin cortex mechanical interactions. Using image analysis techniques on non-adherent breast tumor cells tethered to a surface under drug perturbations targeting microtubule stability, we are able to examine into microtentacle dynamics. We show that stabilizing tubulin leads to a greater number and length of microtentacles.