Contractility Dominates Adhesive Ligand Density in Regulating Cellular De-adhesion and Retraction Kinetics

Cells that are enzymatically detached from a solid substrate rapidly round up as the tensile prestress in the cytoskeleton is suddenly unopposed by cell–ECM adhesions. We recently showed that this retraction follows sigmoidal kinetics with time constants that correlate closely with cortical stiffness values. This raises the promising prospect that these de-adhesion measurements may be used for high-throughput screening of cell mechanical properties; however, an important limitation to doing so is the possibility that the retraction kinetics may also be influenced and potentially rate-limited by the time needed to sever matrix adhesions. In this study, we address this open question by separating contributions of contractility and adhesion to cellular de-adhesion and retraction kinetics. We first develop serum-free conditions under which U373 MG glioma cells can be cultured on substrates of fixed fibronectin density without direct matrix contributions from the medium. We show that while spreading area increases with ECM protein density, cortical stiffness and the time constants of retraction do not. Conversely, addition of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) to stimulate cell contractility strongly speeds retraction, independent of the initial matrix protein density and LPA’s contributions to spreading area. All of these trends hold in serum-rich medium commonly used in tissue culture, with the time constants of retraction much more closely tracking cortical stiffness than adhesive ligand density or cell spreading. These results support the use of cellular de-adhesion measurements to track cellular mechanical properties.