A3572: cancer cells of rounded morphology with blebbing that is not caused by apoptosis.

Apoptosis: programmed cell death or “suicide.”

BE Cells: cancer cells with elongated morphology.

Bleb: a small protrusion on the surface of a cell.

Carcinoma: a cancerous tumor

Confocal Microscopy: a technique with optical layering, allowing it to focus through tissue on cells to see the blebbing.

Cytoskeleton: a scaffolding of microtubules, or long thin beams of proteins, that give a cell shape, and sometimes the ability to move.

Elongated morphology: a cell that has a long thin shape.

Ezrin: cytoskeletal protein.

Golgi Apparatus: a cell organelle involved in protein packaging.

GTP: guanine triphosphate.

GTPase: guanine triphosphate enzyme.

In vitro: refers to a cell culture in a laboratory setting.

In vivo: refers to cell culturing within a live animal.

Matrigel: a synthetic substance produced to imitate the consistency and general chemical content of the mammalian body, consisting of collagen IV, Laminin and some growth factors. In this case, it was used in small plastic wells with porous membranes.

Matrix: see matrigel

Melanoma: a deadly form of skin cancer.

Metastatic Potential: a cancer cell's potential to metastasize, or leave its point of origin and spread the cancer throughout the body.

Morphology: the shape of a cell, such as elongated or rounded.

Nude mice: mice specially bred to have no fur and no thymus. Their lack of thymus results in a repressed immune system so that human cells, such as cancer cells, can be implanted in their bodies and cultured in vivo without the immune system rejecting them.

Protease: eats basement membrane (what separates tissues) and is involved in elongated cell movement, and when inhibited, cell morphology changes to rounded.

Rac: signaling protein in the membrane or cytoplasm. A GTPase linked to rounded cell movement.

Rho: signaling protein inside plasma. A GTPase linked to elongated cell movement.

ROCK: a signaling protein linked to rounded cancer cell morphology.

Rounded morphology: a cell with a rounded, spherical shape.

Signaling Cascade: a chain of reactions that must occur in order to occur at all.

Squamous: a square-shaped cell.

TATC3: a drug that inhibits Rho.

Transfection: new DNA being introduced to a cell, integrated, and expressed, as in viral DNA, recombinant DNA, or cancerous DNA.

Xenografting: cells injected under the skin, usually of nude mice.

Y27632: a drug that inhibits ROCK.