Department of Biomedical Engineering and NIH Ultrasonic Transducer Resource Center, University of Southern California, 1042 Downey Way, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology, Oncology, Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California, 4650 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90027, USA.
Sci Rep. 2018 Oct 24;8(1):15708. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34024-3.
The role of cell mechanics in cancer cells is a novel research area that has resulted in the identification of new mechanisms of therapy resistance. Single beam acoustic (SBA) tweezers are a promising technology for the quantification of the mechanical phenotype of cells. Our previous study showed that SBA tweezers can be used to quantify the deformability of adherent breast cancer cell lines. The physical properties of patient-derived (primary) pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells involved in chemotherapeutic resistance have not been widely investigated. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of analyzing primary pre-B ALL cells from four cases using SBA tweezers. ALL cells showed increased deformability with increasing acoustic pressure of the SBA tweezers. Moreover, ALL cells that are resistant to chemotherapeutic drugs were more deformable than were untreated ALL cells. We demonstrated that SBA tweezers can quantify the deformability of nonadherent leukemia cells and discriminate this mechanical phenotype in chemotherapy-resistant leukemia cells in a contact- and label-free manner.
细胞力学在癌细胞中的作用是一个新的研究领域，它已经确定了新的治疗耐药机制。单光束声（SBA）镊子是一种很有前途的技术，可以定量测量细胞的力学表型。我们之前的研究表明，SBA 镊子可用于定量测量贴壁乳腺癌细胞系的可变形性。参与化疗耐药的患者来源（原发性）前 B 急性淋巴细胞白血病（ALL）细胞的物理特性尚未得到广泛研究。在这里，我们展示了使用 SBA 镊子分析来自四个病例的原发性前 B ALL 细胞的可行性。随着 SBA 镊子的声压增加，ALL 细胞的可变形性增加。此外，对化疗药物耐药的 ALL 细胞比未处理的 ALL 细胞具有更高的可变形性。我们证明了 SBA 镊子可以定量测量非贴壁白血病细胞的可变形性，并以非接触和无标记的方式区分化疗耐药白血病细胞的这种机械表型。
