Listening to cells! A new diagnostics tool?

Scientists in the laboratory of Prof. Michael Kolios at Ryerson University in Toronto have developed a novel methodology for the rapid identification of circulating tumor cells that might have applications in diagnostics.

In their recent paper, Moore, et al. modified an acoustic microscope with a 532 nm laser.  Ultrasound backscatter signals were used to determine cell radii.  Cells were also DRAQ5-stained to label nuclei.  The unique properties of DRAQ5 facilitated generation of photoacoustic signals from the cell nuclei to permit measurement of their radii.  In this work cancer cell lines MCF-7 and HT-29 were utilised to gain model representative data for homogenous populations.

The authors have postulated that in a liquid biopsy non-malignant hematopoietic cells will have significantly different radii (generating a useful nuclear:cytoplasmic ratio) when compared to malignant CTC's.

DRAQ5 benefitted the detection platform since it allows direct labeling of nucleated cells without fixation or permeabilization.  This occurs rapidly even at room temperature, with stoichiometry.  Significantly, DRAQ5's characteristics preferentially mediate a photo-acoustic signal that is otherwise not possible with fluorophores.

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Reference:

Moore, M.J., Strohm, E.M. and Kolios, M.C., 2015, October. Evaluation of the morphological parameters of cancer cells using high-frequency ultrasound and photoacoustics. In Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2015 IEEE International (pp. 1-4). IEEE.