In a study published in the journal Biophysics on Feb. 28, the researchers described a technique for assessing the hardness of individual cells using patterns that appear in internal outcomes. The results show that the more visceral tissue, the more rigid cells.
In the current social use and medical devices in clinical trials, it is desirable to increase the hardness of the cells as an indicator of cancer tissue. However, these medical devices rely on readings from in vivo and can not be operated at the cellular level.
Adam Wax, a professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, found in previous studies that the internal structure of a cell changes with the external flow of the liquid.
Wax indicates that he can calculate the cell hardness by measuring the amount of displacement. This finding has many advantages over conventional methods of measuring single cell hardness. For example, there is no need for physical contact with the cells and less time to measure calls.
Wax Labs doctoral student Will Eldridge, also the first author of the paper, said, "The traditional method, such as atomic force microscopy, takes a whole day to prepare a single sample that uses moving liquid to measure the shear flow only for 30 -40 minutes to a group of cell imaging "
Still dissatisfied with the timetable, Wax and Eldridge mentoring find a visual indicator that can do the same job in a shorter time. In the new article, they show that the number of disorders found in the intracellular structure is directly related to its stiffness.
To measure cell disruption, the researchers irradiated the cells into the cells and compared them to the second barrier-free beam. And then analyze the difference in the amount of time required for the two lasers to pass through the sample to produce a picture that reveals the degree of disorder in the internal structure of the cell.
To prove their own ideas, the team measured in five different types of hepatocarcinoma cells before using their proven "jell-0 mold" technique to measure their stiffness. As expected, these two measures are highly relevant.
"The speed of the technology is limited to the size of the camera's vision," Eldridge said. "You can measure hundreds of individual cells in seconds."
More work is needed to determine the exact relationship between the two measurements, but Wax hopes that the technology can be translated into a new biomedical device for cancer screening.
"It is well known that cell hardness is an indicator of cancer, but there is no viable diagnostic tool that can use the knowledge on cell scale," wax said. "With this technology, I can see the path to create a high-throughput system that can quickly and easily screen cervical cancer, esophageal cancer or colon cancer - you can be anywhere."
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