Abstract 3044: Label-free detection and identification of cancer-associated vesicles in human breast cancer

Abstract

Abstract Detection and identification of cancer-associated vesicles in their native tissue environment is essential to understand vesicle-mediated communication in cancer progression and potentially facilitate the treatment and management of cancer. Here we develop a label-free optical imaging method that can reliably detect cancer-associated vesicles in vitro, in vivo and in untreated human tissue ex vivo. Preliminary analysis conducted on fresh human breast tissue obtained from healthy and cancer subjects showed that a significant portion of vesicles from the cancer subjects have unique optical signatures in comparison with those from healthy subjects. Additionally, the spatial distribution of these vesicles with unique optical signatures in the tumor micro- and macro-environment appeared correlated with the staging of human breast cancer. These results suggest the potential capability of this methodology to identify and characterize the tumor associated vesicles in the authentic tumor microenvironment, which could open new windows in the explorations of their diagnostic values and physiological roles in cancer progression. Citation Format: Sixian You, Yi Sun, Haohua Tu, Ronit Barkalifa, Eric J. Chaney, Marina Marjanovic, Anna M. Higham, Natasha N. Luckey, Kimberly A. Cradock, Z. George Liu, Stephen A. Boppart. Label-free detection and identification of cancer-associated vesicles in human breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3044.