We focused on the biomechanical and morphological characteristics of prostate cancer cells and their changes resulting from the effect of docetaxel, cisplatin, and long-term zinc supplementation. Cell population surviving the treatment was characterized as follows: cell stiffness was assessed by atomic force microscopy, cell motility and invasion capacity were determined by colony forming assay, wound healing assay, coherence-controlled holographic microscopy, and real-time cell analysis. Cells of metastatic origin exhibited lower height than cells derived from the primary tumour. Cell dry mass and CAV1 gene expression followed similar trends as cell stiffness. Docetaxel- and cisplatin-surviving cells had higher stiffness, and decreased motility and invasive potential as compared to non-treated cells. This effect was not observed in zinc(II)-treated cells. We presume that cell stiffness changes may represent an important overlooked effect of cisplatin-based anti-cancer drugs. Atomic force microscopy and confocal microscopy data images used in our study are available for download in the Zenodo repository ( https://zenodo.org/ , Digital Object Identifiers:10.5281/zenodo.1494935).

Central European Institute of Technology Brno University of Technology Technicka 3058 10 CZ 616 00 Brno Czech Republic

Central European Institute of Technology Masaryk University Kamenice 5 CZ 625 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Biomedical Engineering Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Brno University of Technology Technicka 3058 10 CZ 616 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Pathological Physiology Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Kamenice 5 CZ 625 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Physiology Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Kamenice 5 CZ 625 00 Brno Czech Republic

Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 4;12(1):18711. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-23540-y. PubMed

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