Live impedance measurements and time-lapse microscopy observations of cellular adhesion, proliferation and migration after ionizing radiation

Background: Changes in the cellular behavior depend on environmental and intracellular interactions. Cancer treatments force the changes, first on the molecular level, but the main visible changes are macroscopic. During radiotherapy, cancer cell’s adhesion, proliferation and migration should be well monitored. In over 60% of diagnosed cancers cases, patients are given treatments with different protocols of radiotherapy, which result in possible metastasis and acute whole body response to toxic radiation. Objective: Effectiveness of the therapy used depends on the sensitivity/resistance of irradiated cancer cells. Cellular mechanisms of cancer protection, such as the activation of DNA damage and repair pathways, antioxidants production and oxidative stress suppression during treatments are not desira-ble. Cancer cells monitoring require the development of novel techniques, and the best techniques are non-invasive and long-term live observation methods, which are shown in this study. Methods: In cancers, invasive and metastatic phenotypes could be enhanced by stimulation of proliferation rate, decreased adhesion with simultaneous increase of motility and migration potential. For such reasons, the ionizing radiation (IR) stimulated proliferation; migration with lowered adhesiveness of cancer Me45 and normal fibroblasts NHDF were studied. Using impedance measurements technique for live cells, the adhesion of cells after IR exposition was assessed. Additionally proliferation and migration potential, based on standard Wound Healing assay were evaluated by timelapse microscopic observations. Results: We found simulative IR dose-ranges (0.2-2 Gy) for Me45 and NHDF cells, with higher proliferation and adhesion rates. On the other hand, lethal impact of IR (10-12 Gy) on both the cell lines was indicated. Conclusion: Over-confluence cell populations, characterized with high crowd and contact inhibition could modulate invasiveness of individual cells, convert them to display migration phenotype and ad-vance motility, especially after radiotherapy treatments.