A color discriminating broad range cell staining technology for early detection of cell transformation

Posted by Article Type, Issue, Original Article, Vol 8, Issue 1Posted on

Idit Sagiv1, Pavel Idelevich2, Ilia Rivkin3, Rimona Margalit4, Adi Elkeles2, Alexander Levitzki1
1Unit of Cellular Signaling, Department of Biological Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
2Zetiq Technologies LTD, Paz Tower 1, 7th floor, 5-7 Shoham St.,Ramat Gan 52521, Israel
3Zetiq Technologies LTD, Paz Tower 1, 7th floor, 5-7 Shoham St.,Ramat Gan 52521; Department of Biochemistry, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, 69978 Ramat-Aviv, Israel
4Department of Biochemistry, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, 69978 Ramat-Aviv, Israel
DOI: 10.4103/1477-3163.58372

 ABSTRACT

Background: Advanced diagnostic tools stand today at the heart of successful cancer treatment. CellDetect® is a new histochemical staining technology that enables color discrimination between normal cells and a wide variety of neoplastic tissues. Using this technology, normal cells are colored blue/green, while neoplastic cells color red. This tinctorial difference coincides with clear morphological visualization properties, mainly in tissue samples. Here we show that the CellDetect® technology can be deployed to distinguish normal cells from transformed cells and most significantly detect cells in their early pre-cancerous transformed state. Materials and Methods: In tissue culture, we studied the ability of the CellDetect® technology to color discriminate foci in a number of two stage transformation systems as well as in a well defined cellular model for cervical cancer development, using HPV16 transformed keratinocytes. Results: In all these cellular systems, the CellDetect® technology was able to sensitively show that all transformed cells, including pre-cancerous HPV 16 transformed cells, are colored red, whereas normal cells are colored blue/green. The staining technology was able to pick up: (i) early transformation events in the form of small type 1 foci (non-invasive, not piled up small, with parallel alignment of cells), and (ii) early HPV16 transformed cells, even prior to their ability to form colonies in soft agar. The study shows the utility of the CellDetect® technology in early detection of transformation events.

Keywords: Cancer, cell transformation, early detection, HPV, tinctorial difference