In vitro cytotoxicity evaluation of cadmium by label‐free holographic microscopy

Abstract

Among all environmental pollutants, the toxic heavy metal cadmium is considered as a human carcinogen. Cadmium may induce cell death by apoptosis in various cell types, although the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. In this paper we show how a label-free digital holography (DH)-based technique is able to quantify the evolution of key biophysical parameters of cells during the exposure to cadmium for the first time. Murine embryonic fibroblasts NIH 3T3 are chosen here as cellular model for studying the cadmium effects. The results demonstrate that DH is able to retrieve the temporal evolution of different key parameters such as cell volume, projected area, cell thickness and dry mass, thus providing a full quantitative characterization of the cell physical behaviour during cadmium exposure. Our results show that the label-free character of the technique would allow biologists to perform systematic and reliable studies on cell death process induced by cadmium and we believe that more in general this can be easily extended to others heavy metals, thus avoiding the time-consuming, expensive and invasive label-based procedures used nowadays in the field. In fact, pollution by heavy metals is severe issue that needs rapid and reliable methods to be settled.

An optical study of drug resistance detection in endometrial cancer cells by dynamic and quantitative phase imaging

“…The apoptosis activity of the two cell types changed before and after LC and HC treatment (Figure B). A previous study reported that changes in CH, CPA and CV were closely related to cellular apoptosis activity . One possible reason for the nearly unvarying CV change rates may be that the cisplatin treatment time was too short to induce a change in volume, but this explanation requires further investigation.…”

“…Based on the published study in Reference , cytotoxicity‐induced cell morphological changes might be related to cellular apoptosis. To further confirm the apoptotic rate of ISK and ISK‐CisR cells induced by different concentrations of cisplatin, the apoptotic cells were counted after 2 hours of cisplatin treatment.…”

“…In cancer cells, exposure to cisplatin may cause changes in cell morphology in a short period of time , which may be related to toxicity caused by oxidative stress, DNA damage and/or cell death via apoptosis or necrosis . Much work has been performed to quantify the effect of drugs on cancer cells such as fibroblasts , prostate cancer cells and ovarian cancer cells .…”

Morphological changes in the ovarian carcinoma cells of Wistar rats induced by chemotherapy with cisplatin and dioxadet

“…studies of Zebrafish blood flow or larvae circulation [25,26] and microorganism identification [27]. These techniques have been already applied for investigation of cellular response to light exposure [28] or chemical substances [29,30]. QPI-assisted morphological analysis was also used for identification of morphological deviations in red blood cells resulted from iron-refractory iron deficiency anaemia [31].…”

Machine Learning with Optical Phase Signatures for Phenotypic Profiling of Cell Lines

“…Events that significantly affect a cell's morphology or subcellular phase texture are often detected longitudinally or by comparing distinct cell populations . For example, time‐lapse imaging of single cells reveals the effects on phase signals of agents inducing apoptosis , cytoskeletal disruption , or reduced proliferation . In clinically relevant applications, phase features of cells have been used to distinguish cancer from non‐cancer cells in suspension , primary cancer from metastatic cancer cells , and in clinical biopsy specimens fixed on slides .…”