title: Monitoring of lung tumour cell growth in artificial membranes.
abstract: Morbidity of many tumour types is associated with invasion of tumour cells through the basement membrane and subsequent metastasis to vital organs. Tumour invasion is frequently detected late on as many patients present with advanced disease. The method of detecting invasion is through conventional histological staining techniques, which are time consuming and require processing of the sample. This can affect interpretation of the results. In this study, a new imaging technique, optical coherence tomography (OCT), was used to monitor lung tumour cell growth in two artificial membranes composed of either collagen type I or Matrigel. In parallel, standard histological section analysis was performed to validate the accuracy of the monitoring by OCT. Cross-sectional images from OCT revealed that lung tumour cells infiltrated only when low cell seeding density (5 x 10(5)) and low collagen concentration (1.5 mg/ml) were combined. The cells could be easily differentiated from the artificial membranes and appeared as either a brighter layer on the top of the membrane or brighter foci embedded within the darker membrane. These cell-membrane morphologies matched remarkably to the standard histological section images. Our results suggest that OCT has a great potential to become a useful tool for fast and robust imaging of cell growth in vivo and as a potential assessment of cell invasion.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, School of Medicine, Keele University, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 7QB, UK. bea00@keele.ac.uk
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sulé-Suso
authors.forename: Alicia J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: El Haj
authors.forename: Paul R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Hoban
authors.forename: Ruikang
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry*; D024042:Collagen Type I / Q000737:chemistry*; D004338:Drug Combinations; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D007797:Laminin / Q000737:chemistry*; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology*; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness / Q000473:pathology*; D011509:Proteoglycans / Q000737:chemistry*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D024042:Collagen Type I; D004338:Drug Combinations; D007797:Laminin; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D011509:Proteoglycans; C059485:matrigel; D003094:Collagen