Figure 8

Pre-treatment of M109 cells with FFAs increase ECM invasion capability. (A) Lipid-rich M109 cells (arrows) associate with collagen type I fibres (blue) in a visceral adipose tissue (VF) after 24 hours of co-incubation. Asterisks (*) mark VF adipocytes. CARS: grey, SFG: blue. (B) Round cancer cells migrating toward a VF tissue along a 2-D bottom of a culture dish after 24 hours of co-incubation. Images taken with transmission microscopy. (C) CARS image of 2-D migrating cancer cells with intracellular lipid accumulation and cell polarity. Scale bars: 25 μm. (D) Pre-treatment of M109 cells with FFAs increases ECM invasion. ECM invasion assays for untreated M109 cells (blue) or M109 cells pre-treated with CM (red), pre-treated with only CM FFAs (light grey), or pre-treated with only CM cytokines (grey) moving toward chemoattractants: RPMI (supplemented growth medium), CM (VF conditioned medium), only CM FFAs, and only CM cytokines. RFU (relative fluorescent unit) is linearly correlated with cell number. Error bars represent standard deviation across 8 repeated assays.