Marker-free phenotyping of tumor cells by fractal analysis of reflection interference contrast microscopy images.
Phenotyping of tumor cells by marker-free quantification is important for cancer diagnostics. For the first time, fractal analysis of reflection interference contrast microscopy images of single living cells was employed as a new method to distinguish between different nanoscopic membrane features of tumor cells. Since tumor progression correlates with a higher degree of chaos within the cell, it can be quantified mathematically by fractality. Our results show a high accuracy in identifying malignant cells with a failure chance of 3%, which is far better than today's applied methods.
Department of New Materials and Biosystems, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems , and Department of Biophysical Chemistry, University of Heidelberg , Heisenbergstr. 3, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Katharina
K
Klein
Timo
T
Maier
Vera C
VC
Hirschfeld-Warneken
Joachim P
JP
Spatz
D002452:Cell Count; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D058948:Cell Tracking; D017709:Fractals; D006801:Humans; D008857:Microscopy, Interference / Q000379:methods*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis