Journal of biomedical optics
Comparison of volumetric dynamic optical coherence tomography with biological methods for evaluation of radiation effects in prostate tumor spheroids
By Swanson S, Chen K, Cheraghi E and 2 others.
Abstract
Significance
Three-dimensional (3D) tumor spheroids are more physiologically representative of in vivo patient tumors compared with two-dimensional monolayer culture. However, their 3D nature challenges the use of conventional biological techniques such as proliferation assays, fluorescence microscopy, and the clonogenic assay, which is the gold standard method for assessing cell survival following radiation. However, the clonogenic assay requires spheroid disaggregation.
Aim
Non-invasive volumetric imaging with dynamic optical coherence tomography (dOCT) enables cellular activity to be visualized with spatial resolution within 3D tumor spheroids. Cellular activity observed via dOCT in irradiated prostate tumor spheroids was quantified for comparison with conventional biological techniques. Approach: A Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator was used to irradiate spheroid and monolayer cultures with a 6-MV beam. Cellular activity was estimated from dOCT images generated via frequency banding and compared with clonogenic assay, proliferation assay, fluorescence microscopy, and 3D cell simulation.