Imaging RNA from aggressive cancer cells

Cancer metastases are often due to some cells behaving more aggressively than other cells in a tumor. Miao-Ping Chien from Erasmus MC and Daan Brinks from TU Delft are working together from two universities on a method for detecting aggressive cells. They and their team have developed software and a smart microscope and then want to determine the RNA sequence of the cells concerned. As a result, new drugs for cancer may come into the picture in the future.

From two researchers needed a microscope that could image a very large number of cells at once. There was also special software to analyze the images. They and their team developed a microscope that continuously studies images and determines which cells exhibit abnormal behaviour. That behavior of aggressive cancer cells takes place on a timescale of minutes to hours, but the analysis needs to be done much faster.

“After all, you don’t want the cells found to have moved again,” explains Brinks. “The microscope then sends a beam of light to the aggressive cancer cells found. They light up because the fabric has been pre-treated with a special fabric. The glowing cells are then selected, which are then ready for RNA sequencing and analysis. Researchers need a few cells to a few hundred cells.”

Chance of metastasis

Unfortunately, the risk of metastasis remains, even after the tumor has shrunk due to treatment. This metastasis is usually caused by a small group of aggressive cells, and those are exactly the cells the researchers are looking for. Detecting a few cells that behave differently in the tumor has been a major challenge in cancer research for years. It is especially essential to get a picture of the DNA and RNA of those specific cells. The outside of the cell contains so-called biomarkers, but these are quite variable in aggressive cells. Determining the genetic profile of cells has been possible for some time, but that has only been possible for a few years now for single cells.

Search for RNA from aggressive cells

By working on a complicated process with two labs, it is now possible to successively find aggressive cancer cells, illuminate them, separate them from the other cells and determine the RNA sequence. The study in question was recently published in Nature Biomedical Engineering† The cells are detected via a biopsy, a piece of cancer tissue. chien. “Once you know what happens in those cells, you can develop medicines for it. We’ve already discovered a mechanism in a few months, which took others a few years with the existing techniques. We happened to come out with that around the same time. Maybe it will be possible with our method in a few weeks.”

More about cancer and DNA

The total number of available cancer drugs is constantly growing. This makes predicting and choosing the most effective means an increasing challenge. An important factor in this is mapping the DNA changes in each tumor. The best technique for that is Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS). Researchers of the WIDE study argue for the application of this technique in diagnostics.