Tumor Sphere Analysis

Suspension cultures of tumor spheres, including mammospheres and neurospheres, can be rapidly, and accurately analyzed using the Celigo. This automated morphometric analysis tool significantly reduces the time and effort needed to quantify key aspects of 3D spheres including size, growth, growth tracking over time, and response to chemotherapeutics. Analysis of tumor spheres generated from different cancer cell lines and primary cancer cells can be used to evaluate sphere forming efficiency, tumorigenicity, and self-renewal of cancer stem/tumor-initiating cells. Tumor sphere analysis provides several important benefits:

• Non-destructive quantification of live spheroids for correlation with malignant cell behavior
• Whole-well imaging of suspension spheroids (96-well to 6-well)
• Rapid data analysis (scan and analyze an entire 12-well plate in <15 min)
• Analysis of sphere number, size, shape, and growth kinetics over time

Tumor sphere analysis on Celigo. Live images of segmented primary mammospheres generated from MCF10DCIS.COM cells (a premalignant clone of the MCF10A cell line), day 7. Images courtesy of S. Stecklein & R. Jensen, University of Kansas Medical Center.

Mammosphere analysis on Celigo. Live images of segmented primary mammospheres generated from HMLE cells (immortalized primary mammary epithelial cells), day 7. Images courtesy of S. Stecklein & R. Jensen, University of Kansas Medical Center.

Analysis of drug-treated tumor spheroids on Celigo. Live images of segmented spheroids generated from a glioblastoma cell line (top) and a breast carcinoma cell line (bottom). Images courtesy of an anonymous customer.

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