Authors:
Katharina Klein, Timo Maier, Vera C. Hirschfeld-Warneken, and Joachim P. Spatz
Summary:
Phenotyping of tumor cells by marker-free quantification is important for cancer diagnostics. For the first time, fractal analysis of reflection interference contrast microscopy images of single living cells was employed as a new method to distinguish between different nanoscopic membrane features of tumor cells. Since tumor progression correlates with a higher degree of chaos within the cell, it can be quantified mathematically by fractality. Our results show a high accuracy in identifying malignant cells with a failure chance of 3%, which is far better than today’s applied methods.
Source:
NANO Letters; 13(11), 5474-5479 (09/30/13)