Microchip shows tumour cell invasion
17 Aug 2014
Researchers in the US have miroengineered a device that acts as an ’obstacle course’ for cells, new research suggests.
A study carried out by a team of researchers at Brown University, US has shed new light on a cellular metamorphosis thought to play a role in tumour cell invasion throughout the body.
The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a process in which epithelial cells, which usually stick together within a tissue, change into mesenchymal cells, which can disperse and migrate individually thereafter.
“It’s basically an obstacle course for cells
Lead author Ian Wong
Recently, however, scientists have suggested that EMT might also play a vital role in cancer metastasis, allowing cancer cells to escape from tumour masses and colonise distant organs.
The researchers at Brown were able to image cancer cells that had undergone EMT as they migrated across a device which is designed to mimic the tissue surrounding a tumour.
“We’ve been able to image these cells in a biomimetic system and carefully measure how they move,” said lead author Ian Wong.
“In the context of cell migration, EMT upgrades cancer cells from an economy model to a fast sports car,” Wong said.
“Our technology enabled us to track the motion of thousands of ’cars’ simultaneously, revealing that many sports cars get stuck in traffic jams with the economy cars, but that some sports cars break out of traffic and make their way aggressively to distant locations.”
To obtain this view of how cancer cells move, the researchers borrowed microelectronics processing techniques to pattern miniaturised features on silicon wafers, which were then replicated in a rubber-like plastic called PDMS.
The device consists of a small plate, about a half-millimetre square, covered in an array of microscopic pillars.
The pillars, each about 10 micrometres in diameter and spaced about 10 micrometres apart, leave just enough space for the cells to weave their way through, researchers said.
“It’s basically an obstacle course for cells,” Wong said.
With its new understanding of how EMT cancer cells migrate, the researcher team hopes to use this device for preliminary testing of drugs aimed at inhibiting that migration.
“We envision that this technology will be widely applicable for preclinical testing of anti-migration drugs against many different cancer cell lines or patient samples.”
The study has been published in the journal Nature Materials.
