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Dryad

Data from: Reversibility of nuclear and 3D Genomic changes in non-cancerous fibroblasts after constricted migration

Abstract

Metastatic cancer cells and healthy fibroblasts must traverse through tight constrictive spaces to reach secondary sites. We have previously shown that human melanoma (A375) cells that pass through multiple constricted migrations experience stable changes to their nucleus morphology and 3D genome structures and undergo a stable phenotype transition from a low to high migratory state. Here, we investigate whether fibroblasts (BJ-5ta), which are non-cancerous and have an inherent ability to migrate to fulfill roles in wound repair, experience nuclear and 3D genomic changes with constricted migration. While BJ-5ta cells do not get progressively better at migrating with sequential attempts, confocal microscopy analysis of cells stained for Lamin A/C and DAPI after migration shows that these cells do experience nuclear deformations after constricted migration. Unlike the stable changes observed in cancer cells, however, these deformations recovered back to unmigrated levels following proliferation and cell movement and did not induce fibrotic smooth muscle alpha actin expression in these cells. Our study shows that healthy migratory cells are not more robust against alterations caused by constricted migration but can recover from the ones that do arise more readily than cancer cells.