Micromachines (Jun 2020)

Analysis of Single Nucleotide-Mutated Single-Cancer Cells Using the Combined Technologies of Single-Cell Microarray Chips and Peptide Nucleic Acid-DNA Probes

  • Hajime Shigeto,
  • Eriko Yamada,
  • Mizuki Kitamatsu,
  • Takashi Ohtsuki,
  • Akira Iizuka,
  • Yasuto Akiyama,
  • Shohei Yamamura

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/mi11070628
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 7
p. 628

Abstract

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Research into cancer cells that harbor gene mutations relating to anticancer drug-resistance at the single-cell level has focused on the diagnosis of, or treatment for, cancer. Several methods have been reported for detecting gene-mutated cells within a large number of non-mutated cells; however, target single nucleotide-mutated cells within a large number of cell samples, such as cancer tissue, are still difficult to analyze. In this study, a new system is developed to detect and isolate single-cancer cells expressing the T790M-mutated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mRNA from multiple non-mutated cancer cells by combining single-cell microarray chips and peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-DNA probes. The single-cell microarray chip is made of polystyrene with 62,410 microchambers (31-40 µm diameter). The T790M-mutated lung cancer cell line, NCI-H1975, and non-mutated lung cancer cell line, A549, were successfully separated into single cells in each microchambers on the chip. Only NCI-H1975 cell was stained on the chip with a fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-conjugated PNA probe for specifically detecting T790M mutation. Of the NCI-H1975 cells that spiked into A549 cells, 0–20% were quantitatively analyzed within 1 h, depending on the spike concentration. Therefore, our system could be useful in analyzing cancer tissue that contains a few anticancer drug-resistant cells.

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