Substrate Stiffness Modulates the Growth, Phenotype, and Chemoresistance of Ovarian Cancer Cells

Purpose: Identify the effect of substrate stiffness on gene expression Methods:Evaluating for differentially expressed mRNAs in the SKOV-3 cells grown on the different substrates via High-throughput sequence Results: We found that the general direction of changes in gene expression of cells grown on the different substrates and the most significant signalling pathways and the expression of gene orthologs broadly involved in platinum drug resistance, apoptosis, cell cycle. Conclusions: Our study represents the first detailed analysis of the effects of substrate stiffness on gene expression of ovarian cancer cells. SKOV-3 cells were seeded in the petri dishes, coated with hydrogel substrates of different stiffness (0.5kPa, 4kPa, 25kPa).