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Updated: May 29, 2026
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Multiparametric Tumor Organoid Drug Screening Using Widefield Live-Cell Imaging for Bulk and Single-Organoid Analysis
Published on: December 23, 2022
Rapid, massively parallel single-cell drug response measurements via live cell interferometry
Jason Reed1, Jennifer Chun, Thomas A Zangle
1California NanoSystems Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA. jreed@cnsi.ucla.edu
Biophysical Journal
|September 6, 2011
Summary
Live cell interferometry rapidly quantifies cell mass, revealing diverse responses to cancer drugs. This technique advances monitoring of individual cell behavior in populations under therapeutic stress.
Area of Science:
- Biophysics
- Cell Biology
- Cancer Therapeutics
Background:
- Assessing individual cancer cell responses to drugs is crucial but challenging with traditional methods.
- Directly measuring absolute cell growth (physical mass change) in real-time is difficult.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel method for real-time, rapid quantification of cell mass.
- To assess single-cell mass responses in a population under drug treatment.
Main Methods:
- Developed live cell interferometry for real-time cell mass measurement.
- Applied the technique to multiple myeloma cells undergoing tunicamycin-induced unfolded protein stress response.
- Simultaneously profiled mass accumulation in hundreds of cells.
Main Results:
- Live cell interferometry enabled rapid, real-time quantification of cell mass.
- Within 2 hours, treated cells showed suppressed growth compared to controls.
- Observed significant heterogeneity in mass accumulation among individual cells, with some increasing (+15%) and others showing minimal change (<5%).
Conclusions:
- Live cell interferometry offers a conceptual advancement for studying cell populations.
- This method allows for precise identification, monitoring, and measurement of single-cell responses to therapeutic drugs.
- Facilitates a deeper understanding of drug efficacy and resistance mechanisms at the single-cell level.
