Breast Cancer Classification Using Nanochannel Arrays

Abstract

The ability to design a diagnostics platform that can achieve cellular level as well as molecular level classification of targeted biomarkers may be critical toward understanding the fundamental basis of disease initiation and proliferation in breast cancer. In this context, we have looked at breast cancer diagnostics and present the design of a biomedical microdevice for evaluating and classifying cellular samples based on their risk towards metastasis. Primary breast cancer tumors have been shown to contain heterogeneous populations of neoplastic cells. Recent studies have demonstrated that subpopulations of these cells can cooperate in the initiation of collective invasion and metastasis. The role of the sensor we present is to identify the type of cells as non-invasive/”follower” cells that do not result in metastasis or invasive “leader” cells that are thought to be responsible for metastasis, from breast cancer cell lysate samples, thus enabling more selective classification of samples, with the eventual goal of early diagnosis. The device is an electrical immunoassay that incorporates the PDGF- receptor to screen the cell lysate samples for the PGDF binding protein that is preferentially expressed in the invasive, “leader” cells. The sensor comprises of alumina nanochannel arrays integrated on to a microelectronic platform operating on the principle of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to quantify the PGDF protein from the cell lysates.