Autofluorescence imaging of normal and cancerous human epithelial cells.

摘要

The ultimate goal of this research is to determine if cancerous cells can be differentiated from normal cells based on their characteristic fluorescence concentration. Fluorescence concentrations of tryptophan, NADH, and FAD are determined for the following cell lines: HFK, normal human foreskin keratinocytes; HPV, human papillomavirus transfected HFK cells; MEL, melanoma and SUM1315, breast cancer. Tryptophan fluorescence concentration is found to be statistically different between normal cells and both HPV and MEL. No statistical difference was found between normal cells and SUM1315. The concentrations of NADH and FAD were significantly different between each of the cancer cell lines and the normal cells, except for the FAD concentration of SUM1315. Typically, cancer cells exhibited a decrease in redox ratio with respect to normal cells. Based on these findings, conclusions can be drawn about the cancer cells with regard to cellular structure, function, and metabolic activity.