title: Optically trapping tumor cells to assess differentiation and prognosis of cancers.
abstract: We report an optical trapping method that may enable assessment of the differentiation status of cancerous cells by determining the minimum time required for cell-cell adhesion to occur. A single, live cell is trapped and brought into close proximity of another; the minimum contact time required for cell-cell adhesion to occur is measured using transformed cells from neural tumor cell lines: the human neuroblastoma SK-N-SH and rat C6 glioma cells. Earlier work on live adult rat hippocampal neural progenitors/stem cells had shown that a contact minimum of ~5 s was required for cells to adhere to each other. We now find the average minimum time for adhesion of cells from both tumor cell lines to substantially increase to ~20-25 s, in some cases up to 45 s. Upon in vitro differentiation of these cells with all-trans retinoic acid the average minimum time reverts to ~5-7 s. This proof-of-concept study indicates that optical trapping may be a quick, sensitive, and specific method for determining differentiation status and, thereby, the prognosis of cancer cells.
authors.affiliation: UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Kalina Campus, Mumbai 400 098, India.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pradhan
authors.affiliation: UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Kalina Campus, Mumbai 400 098, India.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pathak
authors.affiliation: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, 1 Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400 005, India; atmol1@tifr.res.in.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mathur
authors.affiliation: UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Kalina Campus, Mumbai 400 098, India; brainwave.surf@gmail.com.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Ladiwala
keywords: (000.1430) Biology and medicine; (170.1530) Cell analysis