Investigating dielectric properties of different stages of syngeneic murine ovarian cancer cells

Salmanzadeh A, Sano MB, Gallo-Villanueva RC, Roberts PC, Schmelz EM, Davalos RV. Investigating dielectric properties of different stages of syngeneic murine ovarian cancer cells. Biomicrofluidics. 2013;7: 011809. doi:10.1063/1.4788921

In this study, the electrical properties of four different stages of mouse ovarian surface epithelial (MOSE) cells were investigated using contactless dielectrophoresis (cDEP). This study expands the work from our previous report describing for the first time the crossover frequency and cell specific membrane capacitance of different stages of cancer cells that are derived from the same cell line. The specific membrane capacitance increased as the stage of malignancy advanced from 15.39 ± 1.54 mF m−2 for a non- malignant benign stage to 26.42 ± 1.22 mF m−2 for the most aggressive stage. These differences could be the result of morphological variations due to changes in the cytoskeleton structure, specifically the decrease of the level of actin filaments in the cytoskeleton structure of the transformed MOSE cells. Studying the electrical properties of MOSE cells provides important information as a first step to develop cancer-treatment techniques which could partially reverse the cytoskeleton disorganization of malignant cells to a morphology more similar to that of benign cells.

Organization of the CytoSkeleton

crossover frequency