Alterations of biomechanics in cancer and normal cells induced by doxorubicin

Kaja Fraczkowska, Marcin Bacia, Magda Przybyło, Dominik Drabik, Aleksandra Kaczorowska, Justyna Rybka, Ewa Stefanko, Slawomir Drobczynski, Jan Masajada, Halina Podbielska, Tomasz Wrobel, Marta Kopaczynska

Mechanical properties of biological structures play an important role in regulating cellular activities and are critical for understanding metabolic processes in cancerous cells and the effects of drugs. For some cancers, such as acute myeloid leukaemia, chemotherapy is one of preferential methods. However, due to the lack of selectivity to cancer cells, cytostatic agents cause toxicity to normal tissues. Here, we study the effect of doxorubicin (DOX) on the mechanical properties of DNA molecules, leukemic blast cells and erythrocytes, using optical tweezers. In addition, we controlled the subcellular distribution of the drug by confocal microscopy. Our results indicated that doxorubicin affects mechanical properties of cellular structures. In all cases the drug reduced mechanical strength of examined objects. For the leukemic cells the drug subcellular distribution was predominantly nuclear with some particulate cytoplasmic fluorescence. In erythrocytes, doxorubicin showed fluorescence mainly in cytoplasm and plasma membrane. The lowering of blast cells stiffness may be due to the interaction of doxorubicin with nuclear structures, especially with nucleic acids, as our studies with DNA confirmed. In addition, it is known that DOX inhibits the polymerization of actin and thus cytoskeletal modification may also be important in reducing of cell mechanical strength. In the case of erythrocytes – the non-nucleated cells, a significant effect on the decrease of cell stiffness, besides the cytoskeleton, may have the interaction of the drug with the cell membrane. Experiments with model phospholipid membranes confirmed that observed increase in cell elasticity originates, among other things, from the drug incorporation in the lipid membrane itself. The lowering of mechanical strength of leukemic cells may have an significant impact on the effectiveness of chemotherapy. However, the fact that doxorubicin interacts not only with proliferating cancer cells, but also with the health ones may explains the high toxicity of the drug at the therapeutic concentrations. Our observations also suggest that chemotherapy with doxorubicin may decrease the risk of vascular complications in acute leukemia, due to increasing the cell elasticity.

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