Non-Invasive Quantification of the Growth of Cancer Cell Colonies by a Portable Optical Coherence Tomography

Investigation of tumor development is essential in cancer research. In the laboratory, living cell culture is a standard bio-technology for studying cellular response under tested conditions to predict in vivo cellular response. In particular, the colony formation assay has become a standard experiment for characterizing the tumor development in vitro. However, quantification of the growth of cell colonies under a microscope is difficult because they are suspended in a three-dimensional environment. Thus, optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging was develop in this study to monitor the growth of cell colonies. Cancer cell line of Huh 7 was used and the cells were applied on a layer of agarose hydrogel, i.e., a non-adherent surface. Then, cell colonies were gradually formed on the surface. The OCT technique was used to scan the cell colonies every day to obtain quantitative data for describing their growth. The results revealed the average volume increased with time due to the formation of cell colonies day-by-day. Additionally, the distribution of cell colony volume was analyzed to show the detailed information of the growth of the cell colonies. In summary, the OCT provides a non-invasive quantification technique for monitoring the growth of the cell colonies. From the OCT images, objective and precise information is obtained for higher prediction of the in vivo tumor development.