Researchers at Georgia Tech have been using atomic force microscopy to measure the relative stiffness of healthy and metastatic ovarian cells. Their findings, published in PLoS One, point to the use of cell stiffness as a biomarker to differentiate healthy cells from metastatic ones, as well as those that are aggressive from those that are less so.
Healthy ovarian cells tend to be stiffer, while the more metastatic the cancerous cells get, the softer they are. The researchers believe that cells’ softness allows them to more easily push themselves into the bloodstream, spreading cancer as they squeeze through.
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Just as previous studies on other types of epithelial cancers have indicated, Sulchek also found that cancerous ovarian cells are generally softer and display lower intrinsic variability in cell stiffnesss than non-malignant cells.
“This is a good example of the kinds of discoveries that only come about by integrating skills and knowledge from traditionally diverse fields such as molecular biology and bioengineering,” said [Georgia Tech biology professor John] McDonald. “Although there are a number of developing methodologies to identify circulating cancer cells in the blood and other body fluids, this technology offers the added potential to rapidly determine if these cells are highly metastatic or relatively benign.”
Sulchek and McDonald believe that, when further developed, this technology could offer a huge advantage to clinicians in the design of optimal chemotherapies, not only for ovarian cancer patients but also for patients of other types of cancer.
Georgia Tech press release: Squeezing Ovarian Cancer Cells to Predict Metastatic Potential