Evaluation of the metastatic potential of malignant cells by image processing of digital holographic microscopy data

Cell refractive index (RI) has been proposed as a putative cancer biomarker of great potential, being correlated with cell content and morphology, cell division rate and membrane permeability. We used digital holographic microscopy to compare RI and dry mass density of two B16 murine melanoma sublines of different metastatic potential. Using statistical methods, the distribution of phase shifts within the reconstructed quantitative phase images (QPIs) was analyzed by the method of bimodality coefficients. The observed correlation of RI, dry mass density and bimodality profile with the metastatic potential of the cells was validated by real time impedance based-assay and clonogenic tests. We suggest that RI and bimodality analysis of QPIs histograms could be developed as optical biomarkers useful in label-free detection and quantitative evaluation of cell metastatic potential. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.