$BIO Using a specialized microscope that can compress living cells to just 3 microns wide (approximately 1/30 the diameter of a human hair), researchers at the Spanish Centre for Genomic Regulation observed that, after being squeezed, mitochondria in HeLA cells (a human cervical cancer cell line) rapidly aggregated to the surface of the nucleus within seconds and produced large amounts of ATP. The researchers named these mitochondria "nuclear-associated mitochondria" (NAMs). In experiments, 84% of cancer cells exhibited this phenomenon after being squeezed.

Further research revealed that mechanical squeezing causes DNA in the nucleus to break and tangle, requiring cells to consume large amounts of ATP to untangle and repair the damage. In breast tumor biopsies from 17 human patients, NAMs were three times more frequent in the nuclei at the edges of invasive tumors than in the tumor core. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that a scaffold formed by actin fibers and the endoplasmic reticulum anchors the NAMs. When cells were treated with drugs that disrupt actin, the NAMs collapsed and ATP levels dropped.

The researchers suggest that drugs that block this scaffolding structure could reduce tumor invasiveness without harming healthy tissue.

This discovery opens up new potential avenues for cancer treatment and provides new insights into how cells survive extreme physical stress.