Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting

Mechanobiology of Disease

Poster Abstracts

25-POS

Board 25

Solid-State Micropores for Rapid Investigation of Cancer Cell Mechanical Properties

Waqas Ali

, Young-Tae Kim

1,2

Samir Iqbal

1,2

University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA,

University of Texas Southwestern

Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA.

Solid-state micropores were used to detect tumor cells to process whole blood and to detect

tumor cells without any tagging. The micropore acted as an electromechanical transducer to

differentiate tumor cells from the normal cells. The micropore data also distinguished one type of

tumor cells from the other types of tumors. The electrical signals were seen to be characteristic

of the cell properties. The principle of measurement was like a coulter counter but the

micropores were micromachined in a 200 nm thin membrane and the measurement setup could

detect changes in ionic current as small as picoamperes. The electrical signals stemmed from the

cells’ distinct properties (shape, size, elasticity, stiffness, motility, etc.) and thus the translocation

profiles of cells that were either small or were more elastic and flexible caused electrical pulses

that were shorter in widths and amplitudes. The larger cells or those with lesser elasticity and

flexibility resulted in deeper and wider pulses. The investigations have been done on lung cancer

cells (non-small cell lung cancer cell lines), metastatic and non-metastatic breast cancer cells,

metastatic primary renal cancer cells and primary human glioblastoma cells. The cells

translocation through micropores of relevant sizes caused electrical pulses that could clearly

distinguish particular cancer cells from others. The transformation of difference in cell properties

into differences in electrical profile (i.e. difference in peak amplitude and translocation time)

with this micropore electromechanical transducer can be used to differentiate many types of

cancer cells before and after treatment. The solid-sate micropore device can process the whole

blood sample of cancer patient without any pre-processing requirements and is ideal for point-of-

care applications.