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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 29, 2025

Modeling and Imaging 3-Dimensional Collective Cell Invasion

Modeling and Imaging 3-Dimensional Collective Cell Invasion

Published on: December 7, 2011

Single-cell morphology encodes metastatic potential.

Pei-Hsun Wu^1,2, Daniele M Gilkes^1,3, Jude M Phillip²

¹Johns Hopkins Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

Science Advances

|February 4, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Cell morphology analysis reveals distinct, heritable traits in breast cancer clones. These morphological differences predict tumor growth and metastasis, offering a new method for in vivo cancer phenotyping.

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Last Updated: Dec 29, 2025

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Micromanipulation of Circulating Tumor Cells for Downstream Molecular Analysis and Metastatic Potential Assessment

Micromanipulation of Circulating Tumor Cells for Downstream Molecular Analysis and Metastatic Potential Assessment

Published on: May 14, 2019

Area of Science:

Cancer research
Cell biology
Genomics

Background:

Precision medicine aims to tailor treatments using multidimensional patient data.
Cell morphology reflects a cell's functional state and molecular underpinnings.
Quantitative cell morphology analysis can provide insights into cellular function.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relationship between cell morphology and functional phenotypes in breast cancer.
To determine if morphological traits are heritable and associated with genomic and transcriptomic profiles.
To assess the predictive power of cell morphology for tumorigenic and metastatic potential in vivo.

Main Methods:

Measured 216 morphological features from over 30,000 breast cancer cells.
Established and analyzed single cell-derived clones (SCCs) from parental breast cancer cells.
Utilized unsupervised clustering analysis to classify SCCs based on morphology.
Validated findings using multiple in vivo mouse models of breast cancer.

Main Results:

Single cell-derived clones exhibited distinct and heritable morphological traits.
Morphological traits were associated with genomic (ploidy) and transcriptomic phenotypes.
Morphological classes predicted distinct tumorigenic and metastatic potentials in vivo.
Quantitative morpho-profiling effectively phenotyped cancer cell function.

Conclusions:

Cell morphology is a heritable trait linked to functional and genomic phenotypes in breast cancer.
In vitro quantitative morpho-profiling can predict in vivo cancer behavior.
Morpho-profiling offers a potentially convenient and economical method for cancer phenotyping.