Nature Communications (Mar 2017)

Polymeric mechanical amplifiers of immune cytokine-mediated apoptosis

  • Michael J. Mitchell,
  • Jamie Webster,
  • Amanda Chung,
  • Pedro P. G. Guimarães,
  • Omar F. Khan,
  • Robert Langer

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14179
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Fluid shear stress plays a critical role in receptor-mediated signalling and has been shown to sensitize cancer cells to apoptosis. Here, Mitchellet al. introduce polymer micro- and nanoparticles tethered to tumour cells to amplify fluid shear stress effects, and find that they can enhance immune cytokine-mediated apoptosis of tumour cells in vitro and in vivo.