Observe without disturbing: tracer particles sense local stresses in cell collectives without affecting the cancer cell dynamics

Abstract

Measurements of local stresses on the cancer cells (CCs), inferred by embedding inert compressible tracer particles (TPs) in a growing multicellular spheroid (MCS), show that pressure decreases monotonically as the distance from the core of the MCS increases. How faithfully do the TPs report the local stresses in the CCs is an important question because pressure buildup in the MCS is dynamically generated due to CC division, which implies that the CC dynamics should be minimally altered by the TPs. Here using theory and simulations, we show that although the TP dynamics is unusual, exhibiting sub-diffusive behavior on times less than the CC division times and hyper-diffusive dynamics in the long-time limit, they do not affect the long-time CC dynamics. The CC pressure profile within the MCS, which decays from a high value at the core to the periphery, is almost identical with and without the TPs. That the TPs have a small effect on the local stresses in the MCS implies that they are reasonale reporters of the CC microenvironment.