Shear stress modulates tumour cell adhesion to the endothelium

Abstract

The adhesion of breast adenocarcinoma cells (MDA‐MB‐231) to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) was studied in whole blood and under varying flow conditions. This study was done on HUVEC either kept under static conditions or pre‐conditioned in flow for 2 hours at a shear stress of 5 or 13 dyn/cm². Coverslips coated by HUVEC were placed in a parallel plate perfusion chamber and perfused at a shear rate of 300 or 1500 sec⁻¹ with heparin‐anticoagulated blood containing ¹¹¹In labelled MDA‐MB‐231 cells. We report here the optimal conditions for studying the adhesion of MDA‐MB‐231 to endothelial cells under shear constraints corresponding to those observed into small and medium sized arteries.