Dynamic physical properties of dissociated tumor cells revealed by dielectrophoretic field-flow fractionation

Metastatic disease results from the shedding of cancer cells from a solid primary tumor, their transport through the cardiovascular system as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and their engraftment and growth at distant sites. Little is known about the properties and fate of tumor cells as they leave t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Integrative biology (Cambridge) 2011-08, Vol.3 (8), p.850-862
Main Authors: Shim, Sangjo, Gascoyne, Peter, Noshari, Jamileh, Hale, Katherine Stemke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apoptosis
Cardiovascular Diseases - pathology
Cell Line, Tumor
Cell Membrane - metabolism
Cytoplasm - metabolism
Electric Conductivity
Electrodes
Electrophoresis - methods
Glass
Humans
Neoplastic Cells, Circulating
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
Phenotype
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Summary:Metastatic disease results from the shedding of cancer cells from a solid primary tumor, their transport through the cardiovascular system as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and their engraftment and growth at distant sites. Little is known about the properties and fate of tumor cells as they leave their growth site and travel as single cells. We applied analytical dielectrophoretic field-flow fractionation (dFFF) to study the membrane capacitance, density and hydrodynamic properties together with the size and morphology of cultured tumor cells after they were harvested and placed into single cell suspensions. After detachment, the tumor cells exhibited biophysical properties that changed with time through a process of cytoplasmic shedding whereby membrane and cytoplasm were lost. This process appeared to be distinct from the cell death mechanisms of apoptosis, anoikis and necrosis and it may explain why multiple phenotypes are seen among CTCs isolated from patients and among the tumor cells obtained from ascitic fluid of patients. The implications of dynamic biophysical properties and cytoplasmic loss for CTC migration into small blood vessels in the circulatory system, survival and gene expression are discussed. Because the total capacitance of tumor cells remained higher than blood cells even after they had shed cytoplasm, dFFF offers a compelling, antibody-independent technology for isolating viable CTCs from blood even when they are no larger than peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
ISSN:1757-9694
1757-9708
DOI:10.1039/c1ib00032b