Spatiotemporal Patterns of Active Deformation Reveal Downregulation of Cell-Cell Adhesion in Patient-Derived Colorectal Cancer Organoids with BRAF Mutation

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common cause of cancer-related mortality. At the molecular level, CRC is associated with genetic mutations and epigenetic modifications that dysregulate various signaling networks. From the biophysical viewpoint, invasive and metastatic cell migration need to be empowered by mechanical forces. In this study, we analyze the dynamic deformation of patient-derived CRC organoids in Fourier space and demonstrate how organoids with protooncogene BRAF mutation exhibit deformation phenotypes at an early stage. The organoids with BRAFmut have significantly lower elasticity and higher viscosity than those with BRAFWT, which mathematically indicated as the weakening of cell-cell adhesion. Immunohistochemical images, qRT-PCR, and TCGA data analysis confirm the downregulation of E-cadherin (CDH1) in BRAFmut organoids as well as in BRAFmut CRC, suggesting that the decrease in cell-cell adhesion in BRAFmut CRC facilitates invasive and metastatic migration. Notably, the recovery of CDH1 expression by pharmacological inhibition of DNA methylation can quantitatively be detected as the change in mechanical properties, suggesting that the complementary combination of dynamic phenotyping, mathematical modelling, and molecular-level analyses has a potential to unravel the mechanistic causality of the critical gene mutation and CRCs prognosis and the response to therapeutic interventions.