Morphological Plasticity of Human Melanoma Cells is Determined by Nanoscopic Patterns of E- and N-Cadherin Interactions

Loss of E-cadherin and concomitant up-regulation of N-cadherin is known as the cadherin switch and has been implicated in melanoma progression. Mechanistically, homophilic ligation of N-cadherin-expressing melanoma cells with N-cadherin presented within the micro-environment is thought to facilitate invasion. However, the biophysical aspects governing molecular specificity and function of such interactions remain unclear. By using precisely defined nano-patterns of N- or E-cadherin (with densities tunable by more than one order of magnitude, from 78 to 1,128 ligands/μm2), we analyzed adhesion and spreading of six different human melanoma cell lines with distinct constitutive cadherin expression patterns.