Triboelectric current stimulation alleviates in vitro cell migration and in vivo tumor metastasis

Metastasis is a leading cause of cancer related death, which remains a major challenge for cancer therapy. Although numerous strategies have been developed for metastasis treatment, several critical issues, such as emergence of drug resistance, cell insensitivity to antagonists, side effects of agents, still need to be addressed. As a high-performance triboelectric device, the triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) also have shown high promise for biological and biomedical applications, yet TENG for cancer metastasis treatment has not been reported. In this work, we present a electrotherapeutic strategy by employing the current stimulation of TENG to suppress in vitro cell migration of cancer cells and to alleviate in vivo early tumor metastasis to the lung tissue. We reveal TENG stimulation with an output current at 150 μA can destroy actin and tubulin-related cellular cytoskeleton, and efficiently alleviate in vitro cell migration. Using mice inoculated with 4T1-LUC cells as in vivo tumor metastasis models, we show TENG-based treatments with the current of 150 μA are able to prevent cancer cell spreading to other body sites (e.g., lung) and without obvious toxicity to normal organs and tissues. This novel TENG-based electrotherapeutic strategy shows the effective inhibition of early tumor metastasis, and the exciting potential of the triboelectric stimulation of TENG for cancer metastasis treatment.