Flexible cancer cells... is this too much of a stretch?

The environment effects how and why cancer cells spread to different organs. My research is interested in studying which proteins become activated when the environment changes. These are bone cancer cells grown in a stiff environment and labelled with different fluorescent probes for different proteins. Cells can change their shape and activate certain proteins depending on what kind of environment they are in. In a stiff environment, like the one shown here, cells are stretched and elongated.