I see this just sporadically when using tumour cells (melanoma), as a measure of 'vasculogenic mimicry' activity. Normally, certain melanoma cell lines will form tubes on Matrigel after about 4-6 hrs. But occasionally the cells rapidly invade through the Matrigel to the bottom of the well and attach and spread on the plastic, instead of forming tubes.
If anyone has any ideas about why this happens sometimes but not others, I'd love to hear it!
Nice and crisp observation. I think its a expected event for a melanoma cell. The aggressiveness of this cancer type is extremely high and this can invade the basement matrix in vivo very often to initiate the metastasis. This cancer is highly invasive and metastatic in nature. Accordingly your cell might invade the matrigel layer. Increase your matrigel concentration and see that observation is happening or not.
Melanoma cells will invade matrigel. As a matter of fact I have observed them invading even agar when placed on top and forming colonies inside.
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