Medicine, Health Care<\/a> New Method to Measure Cell\u2026<\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n
Published: October 4, 2017.
Released by University of California – Los Angeles<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n
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UCLA biophysicists have developed a new method to rapidly determine a single cell’s stiffness and size — which could ultimately lead to improved treatments for cancer and other diseases.<\/p>\n
The method allows researchers to make standardized measurements of single cells, determine each cell’s stiffness and assign it a number, generally between 10 and 20,000, in a unit of measurement called pascals. Pascals can be used to quantify any material from a cell to rubber, wood, titanium and diamond.<\/p>\n
“Measuring cells with our calibrated instrument is like measuring time with a standardized clock,” said senior author Amy Rowat, UCLA associate professor of integrative biology and physiology. “Our method can be used to obtain stiffness measurements of hundreds of cells per second.”<\/p>\n
The method, called quantitative deformability cytometry, or q-DC, uses a small device (about one inch by two inches), which is made out of a soft, flexible rubber similar to the material used for contact lenses; it has integrated circuit chips, like those in computers. The researchers use gel particles containing molecules derived from seaweed — with a texture similar to Jell-O, whose stiffness they know — to force cells through the device. The cells squeeze through tiny pores, about 10 times smaller than the width of a single human hair. As the cells flow down through the device, the researchers take videos at thousands of frames per second — more than 100 times faster than standard video.<\/p>\n
Lead author, UCLA graduate student Kendra Nyberg, built the device and has placed billions of cells through it. For this research, which is published<\/a> in Biophysical Journal<\/em>, Rowat and Nyberg reported on breast cancer cells. Cancer cells are generally two to five times less stiff than normal cells.<\/p>\n In the future, doctors could use the method to track a patient over time to see how a drug is affecting the patient’s cancer cells, Rowat said. Tumor cells could be extracted from the person or taken from a biopsy and analyzed through the device, which Rowat designed.<\/p>\n The research will provide scientists with a more precise, standardized method to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells. It is also likely to enable doctors eventually to predict how invasive a cancer cell might be, and what drugs may be most effective in fighting the cancer. The method could also help reveal which proteins are important in regulating the invasion of a cancer cell — which could be useful because scientists possess molecular biology tools to block particular proteins.<\/p>\n “By using q-DC, we can very rapidly assess how specific drug treatments affect physical properties of single cells, such as shape, size and stiffness, and achieve calibrated, quantitative measurements,” said Rowat, a member of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.<\/p>\n The researchers are now expanding the method to apply it to other types of cancer cells. They would like to better understand the relationship between a cancer cell’s physical properties and how easily cancer cells can spread through the body. Rowat’s hypothesis is that such properties as stiffness, cell size and a cell’s ability to change shape are important in enabling cancer cells to maneuver.<\/p>\n Rowat and Nyberg can also measure other types of cells, such as sickle cells and red blood cells (which are altered in diabetes).<\/p>\n Medicine, Health Care New Method to Measure Cell\u2026 Published: October 4, 2017.Released by University of California – Los Angeles\u00a0\u00a0 UCLA biophysicists have developed a new method to rapidly determine a single cell’s stiffness and size — which could ultimately lead to improved treatments for cancer and other diseases. The method allows researchers to make standardized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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