Heterogeneity of colorectal cancer cell positions as a cell viability biometrie

Abstract

In this paper, we quantify spatial heterogeneity in the positions of live cells as potential biomarkers for cell viability in 3d in-vitro microenvironment under the impact of anti-cancer agents. We present three case studies using human colorectal cancer cell lines of HCT-116, SW-620 and SW-480 in 48-hour experiments. With our data acquisition system guiding an inverted microscope and a digital camera, bright field and fluorescent images are captured at different time points. The viability of the human cancer cells, under FOLFOX impact are measured throughout the experiments. By processing the images captured from microenvironment, spatial heterogeneity in live cell positions are computed based on poisson point process. In all three case studies, we detect an increase in live cell spatial heterogeneity as the cell viability decreases in time as a result of FOLFOX. The encouraging result of correlation between cell viability and spatial heterogeneity has potential to be used in 3D in-vitro microenvironment assays as a biomarker.