Figure 5

Rho A induced by the ECM microtopography promotes motility of more tumorigenic colon cancer cells via Rho A. Microtopography plays an integral role in the up regulation of cellular motility of the more tumorigenic SW620 cells when plated on a post microtopography (panel A and C). The result is an increase in the overall distance traveled by SW620 cells when plated on a post microtopography (panel A). When SW620 cells are transfected with Rho A siRNA, cellular motility was shown to decrease on the post microtopography (panel B and C). Since the post microtopography emulates the native environment of more tumorigenic cells, this data suggests that Rho A promotes the cellular motility of more tumorigenic cells in their native topographical environment. Proof of our ability to successfully knockdown Rho A using siRNA is shown in Figure 4, panel D. Similar results were obtained using SW620 cells (Data not shown.). The x and y-axes in panels A and B are in μm and the colored lines are representative cell trajectories. The values in panel C are the mean ± the standard error. Where: * = p < 0.01, ** = p < 0.05 when comparing the standard and transfected values.