Visualizing Interactions of Circulating Tumor Cell and Dendritic Cell in the Blood Circulation Using In Vivo Imaging Flow Cytometry.

OBJECTIVE: Visualizing cell interactions in blood circulation is of great importance in studies of anticancer immunotherapy or drugs. However, the lack of a suitable imaging system hampers progress in this field.
METHODS: In this work, we built a dual-channel in vivo imaging flow cytometer to visualize the interactions of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and dendritic cells (DCs) simultaneously in the bloodstream. Two artificial neural networks were trained to identify blood vessels and cells in the acquired images. RESULTS AND
CONCLUSION: Using this technique, single CTCs and CTC clusters were readily distinguished by their morphology. Interactions of CTCs and DCs were identified, while their moving velocities were analyzed. The CTC-DC clusters moved at a slower velocity than that of single CTCs or DCs. This may provide new insights into tumor metastasis and blood rheology. SIGNIFICANCE: This in vivo imaging flow cytometry system holds great potential for assessing the efficiency of targeting CTCs with anticancer immune cells or drugs.