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Sialic acid (SA) is a monosaccharide usually linked to the terminus of glycan chains on the cell surface. It plays a crucial role in many biological processes, and hypersialylation is a common feature in cancer. Lectins are widely used to analyze the cell surface expression of SA. However, these protein molecules are usually expensive and easily denatured, which calls for the development of alternative glycan-specific receptors and cell imaging technologies. In this study, SA-imprinted fluorescent core-shell molecularly imprinted polymer particles (SA-MIPs) were employed to recognize SA on the cell surface of cancer cell lines. The SA-MIPs improved suspensibility and scattering properties compared with previously used core-shell SA-MIPs. Although SA-imprinting was performed using SA without preference for the α2,3- and α2,6-SA forms, we screened the cancer cell lines analyzed using the lectins Maackia Amurensis Lectin I (MAL I, α2,3-SA) and Sambucus Nigra Lectin (SNA, α2,6-SA). Our results show that the selected cancer cell lines in this study presented a varied binding behavior with the SA-MIPs. The binding pattern of the lectins was also demonstrated. Moreover, two different pentavalent SA conjugates were used to inhibit the binding of the SA-MIPs to breast, skin, and lung cancer cell lines, demonstrating the specificity of the SA-MIPs in both flow cytometry and confocal fluorescence microscopy. We concluded that the synthesized SA-MIPs might be a powerful future tool in the diagnostic analysis of various cancer cells.

Bakgrund: Digital holografi är en ny teknik som de senaste fem åren använts för att studera levande celler. Tekniken utgör en innovativ, icke-förstörande metod som möjliggör studier av levande celler över tid.Material och metoder: Litteraturen har valts ut genom att söka på redan kända forskargrupper och företag som arbetar både med digital holografi och cellstudier samt PubMed-sökningar.Resultat och sammanfattning: Digital holografi ger kunskap om cellernas brytningsindex, som kan ändras under olika förhållanden. De parametrar som kan mätas ger unik information om cellantal, cellernas area, tjocklek och volym, vilket kan omvandlas till proliferation, viabilitet och celldöd. Tekniken är relativt billig, snabb och enkel att använda. Background: Digital holography is a novel technique that has been used for about five years to study living cells. The technique is an innovative, non-destructive method with possibilities to study living cells over time.Materials and methods: The literature in this paper was selected on the basis of already known research groups and companies in the field working with both digital holography and cell studies, as well as PubMed search.Results and conclusions: Digital holography is a method that gives us information about the refractive index of cells, which can change under different circumstances. The unique measurable parameters are the cell number, cell area, thickness and volume, which can be transformed to proliferation, viability and cell death. The technique is cheap, fast and simple to use.

Digital holography is a novel technique that has been developed recently to study living cells. The technique is an innovative, non-destructive method with possibilities to study living cells over time. We are investigating cell number, growth, viability and death of adherent cells using digital holography, which is a novel, label-free, imaging technique for biological applications. We have recently demonstrated that digital holography is highly comparable to the conventional manual cell counting method using a hemocytometer (Mölder et al., 2008). Digital holography is a method that gives us information about the refractive index of cells, which can change under different circumstances. The technique is cheap, fast and simple to use. The unique measurable parameters are the cell number, cell area, thickness and volume, which can be transformed to proliferation, migration, viability and cell death. The digital holographic images produced can provide both quantitative and qualitative phase information from a single hologram. Future applications can include real-time cell monitoring of various parameters of cells of different diseases in response to clinically relevant compounds.