Investigation of mechanical properties of breast cancer cells using micropipette aspiration technique

Abstract

Characterization of the mechanical properties of cancer cells is a promising diagnostic method for recognizing cancerous cells in the very early stages of the disease. In this study, the micropipette aspiration technique was used to investigate deformability differences between two types of breast cancer cell line: BT‐20 and Hs578T. Hs578T breast cancer cells have been reported having stem cell‐like properties, whereas BT‐20 cells are more recognized as non‐stem cell‐like cancer cells. Using a controlled aspiration pressure, a cancer cell was aspirated into a small glass micropipette while the length of the aspirated section of the cell inside the micropipette was measured. For a solid‐like cell, the Young's modulus can be calculated from the slope of a pressure versus aspiration length graph. The Hs578T cell line was found to have a Young's modulus larger than that of the BT‐20 cell line. This supports our hypothesis that the technique can be used for the characterization of cancer cells by their mechanical properties, which could lead to a new method of detecting circulating tumor cells. This work was supported by grant CBET‐1106118 from the National Science Foundation.