The research objective is to investigate the relationship between the viscoelastic properties of breast cancer spheroids and their metastatic potential. The study employs a microfluidic device to subject spheroids to controlled dynamic compression, followed by monitoring their relaxation behavior.
The experiments were performed on a brightfield microscope, while the immunostaining images were taken on a confocal microscope. The images were extracted as .tif files and implemented in custom made MATLAB codes to analyse the spheroid compression and relaxation dynamics. Parameters like axial strain (for compression), deformation parameters (for relaxation), circularity were defined and fitted to physical models to extract viscoelastic parameters and relaxation timescales. The file include also the codes to generate the final figures included in the manuscript. A README file helps navigating the folders.