A Study on Automated Measurement of Rotational Speed of Living Cells Under Dielectrophoresis

Abstract

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) are cancer cells that have detached from the primary tumor or metastatic sites and circulate in the bloodstream. CTCs are considered to be factors in cancer progression and metastasis, and their detection enables early cancer detection, prediction of disease progression, and monitoring of treatment effectiveness. Electro-rotation of cells is a phenomenon in which cells undergo rotational motion due to an externally applied rotational electric field. It is suggested that by measuring the rotational speed, which varies due to the electrical characteristics of cells, it is possible to distinguish between CTCs and normal cells. In this study, we aimed to automatically measure the rotation speed of living cells by electro-rotation using video processing technology in order to realize the discrimination between CTCs and normal cells. In automatic measurement, it is difficult to measure the rotation speed from a feature point on the shape or a fixed reference point, which is generally done, because the rotation direction is not necessarily horizontal to the camera and orbital rotation is taking place. Therefore, we attempted to solve the aforementioned problems by sequentially updating feature and reference points.