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3D Imaging of Cancer Cells Could Lead to Improved Ability of Pathologists and Radiologists to Plan Cancer Treatments and Monitor Cell Interactions

DARK DAILY   4/8/2016   info@DarkDaily.com  http://www.darkdaily.com/#axzz45En6Xbfr

Imaging research is one step closer to giving clinicians a way to do high-resolution scans of malignant cells in order to diagnose cancer and help identify useful therapies. If this technology were to prove successful in clinical studies, it might change how anatomic pathologists and radiologists diagnose and treat cancer.

Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center developed a way to create near-isotropic, high-resolution scans of cells within their microenvironments. The process involves utilizing a combination of two-photonBessel beams and specialized filtering.

New Imaging Approach Could be Useful to Both Pathologists and Radiologists

In a recent press release, senior author Reto Fiolka, PhD, said “there is clear evidence that the environment strongly affects cellular behavior—thus, the value of cell culture experiments on glass must at least be questioned. Our microscope is one tool that may bring us a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive cancer cell behavior, since it enables high-resolution imaging in more realistic tumor.”

In a study in Developmental Cell, Erik S. Welf, PhD, et al, described the new microenvironmental selective plane illumination microscopy (meSPIM). When developing the technology, the team outlined three goals:

1. The microscope design must not prohibitively constrain microenvironmental properties.

2. Spatial and temporal resolution must match the cellular features of interest.

3. Spatial resolution must be isotropic to avoid spatial bias in quantitative measurements.

This new technology offers pathologists and medical laboratory scientists a new look at cancer cells and other diseases. The study notes that meSPIM eliminates the influence of stiff barriers, such as glass slide covers, while also allowing a level of control over both mechanical and chemical influences that was previously impossible.

Early meSPIM Research Reveals New Cell Behaviors

Early use of meSPIM in observing melanoma cells is already offering new insights into the relationship between the cell behavior of cellular- and subcellular-scale mechanisms and the microenvironment in which these cells exist. The study notes, “The ability to image fine cellular details in controllable microenvironments revealedmorphodynamic features not commonly observed in the narrow range of mechanical environments usually studied in vitro.”

One such difference is the appearance of blebbing. Created by melanoma cells and lines, these small protrusions are thought to aid in cell mobility and survival. Using meSPIM, observers could follow the blebbing process in real-time. Formation of blebs on slides and within an extracellular matrix (ECM) showed significant differences in both formation and manipulation of the surrounding microenvironment.

The team is also using meSPIM to take a look at membrane-associated biosensorand cytosolic biosensor signals in 3D. They hope that investigation of proteins such as phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and protein kinase C will help to further clarify the roles these signals play in reorientation of fibroblasts.

meSPIM combined with computer vision enables imaging, visualization, and quantification of how cells alter collagen fibers over large distances within an image volume measuring 100 mm on each side. (Photo Copyright: Welf and Driscoll et al.)   http://www.darkdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/meSPIM-500ppi-220×300.jpg

Seeing cancer cells in 3-D (w/ Video)

February 22, 2016

Extracted surfaces of two cancer cells. (Left) A lung cancer cell colored by actin intensity near the cell surface. Actin is a structural molecule that is integral to cell movement. (Right) A melanoma cell colored by PI3-kinase activity near the cell surface. PI3K is a signaling molecule that is key to many cell processes. Credit: Welf and Driscoll et al.  http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2016/cancerin3d.png

Cancer cells don’t live on glass slides, yet the vast majority of images related to cancer biology come from the cells being photographed on flat, two-dimensional surfaces—images that are sometimes used to make conclusions about the behaviour of cells that normally reside in a more complex environment. But a new high-resolution microscope, presented February 22 in Developmental Cell, now makes it possible to visualize cancer cells in 3D and record how they are signaling to other parts of their environment, revealing previously unappreciated biology of how cancer cells survive and disperse within living things.

“There is clear evidence that the environment strongly affects cellular behavior—thus, the value of cell culture experiments on glass must at least be questioned,” says senior author Reto Fiolka, an optical scientist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “Our microscope is one tool that may bring us a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive cancer cell behavior, since it enables high-resolution imaging in more realistic tumor environments.”

In their study, Fiolka and colleagues, including co-senior author Gaudenz Danuser, and co-first authors Meghan Driscoll and Erik Welf, also of UT Southwestern, used their microscope to image different kinds of skin cancer cells from patients. They found that in a 3D environment (where cells normally reside), unlike a glass slide, multiple melanoma cell lines and primary melanoma cells (from patients with varied genetic mutations) form many small protrusions called blebs. One hypothesis is that this blebbing may help the cancer cells survive or move around and could thus play a role in skin cancer cell invasiveness or drug resistance in patients.

The researchers say that this is a first step toward understanding 3D biology in tumor microenvironments. And since these kinds of images may be too complicated to interpret by the naked eye alone, the next step will be to develop powerful computer platforms to extract and process the information.

“When we conceived of this project, we first asked what we wanted to measure and then designed a microscope and analytical platform to achieve this goal,” says co-first author Erik Welf, a cell biologist. “We hope that now instead of asking what we can measure, scientists will ask what we must measure in order to make meaningful contributions to cancer cell biology.”

The microscope control software and image analytical code are freely available to the scientific community.

More information: Developmental Cell, Welf and Driscoll et al.: “Quantitative Multiscale Cell Imaging in Controlled 3D Microenvironments” dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2016.01.022

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-cancer-cells-d-video.html#jCp

Quantitative Multiscale Cell Imaging in Controlled 3D Microenvironments

Erik S. Welf⁴, Meghan K. Driscoll⁴, Kevin M. Dean, Claudia Schäfer, Jun Chu, Michael W. Davidson, Michael Z. Lin, Gaudenz Danuser , Reto Fiolka

Dev Cell  22 Feb 2016;  Volume 36, Issue 4:462–475     DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2016.01.022

Read more: 3D Imaging of Cancer Cells Could Lead to Improved Ability of Pathologists and Radiologists to Plan Cancer Treatments and Monitor Cell Interactions | Dark Daily http://www.darkdaily.com/3d-imaging-of-cancer-cells-could-lead-to-improved-ability-of-pathologists-and-radiologists-to-plan-cancer-treatments-and-monitor-cell-interactions-301#ixzz45Enp2yT0

The research team believes this opens new possibilities for studying diseases at a subcellular level, saying, “Cell biology is necessarily restricted to studying what we can measure. Accordingly, while the last hundred years have yielded incredible insight into cellular processes, unfortunately most of these studies have involved cells plated onto flat, stiff surfaces that are drastically different from the in vivo microenvironment …

“Here, we introduce an imaging platform that enables detailed subcellular observations without compromising microenvironmental control and thus should open a window for addressing these fundamental questions of cell biology.”

Limitations of meSPIM

One significant issue associated with the use of meSPIM is the need to process the large quantity of data into useful information. Algorithms currently allow for automatic bleb detection. However, manual marking, while time consuming, still provides increased accuracy. Researchers believe the next step in improving the quality of meSPIM scans lie in computer platforms designed to extract and process the scan data.

Until this process is automated, user bias, sample mounting, and data handling will remain risks for introducing errors into the collected data. Yet, even in its early stages, meSPIM offers new options for assessing the state of cancer cells and may eventually provide pathologists and radiologists with additional information when creating treatment plans or assessments.