title: Deformability of Tumor Cells versus Blood Cells.
abstract: The potential for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to elucidate the process of cancer metastasis and inform clinical decision-making has made their isolation of great importance. However, CTCs are rare in the blood, and universal properties with which to identify them remain elusive. As technological advancements have made single-cell deformability measurements increasingly routine, the assessment of physical distinctions between tumor cells and blood cells may provide insight into the feasibility of deformability-based methods for identifying CTCs in patient blood. To this end, we present an initial study assessing deformability differences between tumor cells and blood cells, indicated by the length of time required for them to pass through a microfluidic constriction. Here, we demonstrate that deformability changes in tumor cells that have undergone phenotypic shifts are small compared to differences between tumor cell lines and blood cells. Additionally, in a syngeneic mouse tumor model, cells that are able to exit a tumor and enter circulation are not required to be more deformable than the cells that were first injected into the mouse. However, a limited study of metastatic prostate cancer patients provides evidence that some CTCs may be more mechanically similar to blood cells than to typical tumor cell lines.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Josephine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shaw Bagnall
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Sangwon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Byun
authors.affiliation: Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Shahinoor
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Begum
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.|Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Miyamoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Vivian C
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: Hecht
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.|Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Shyamala
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maheswaran
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.|Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.|Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Engineering and Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Shannon L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Stott
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.|Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Engineering and Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Mehmet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toner
authors.affiliation: Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Richard O
authors.initials: RO
authors.lastname: Hynes
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.|Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
authors.forename: Scott R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Manalis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D023421:Models, Animal; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000737:chemistry*