ePrints@IIScePrints@IISc Home | About | Browse | Latest Additions | Advanced Search | Contact | Help

Label-free multimodal electro-thermo-mechanical (ETM) phenotyping as a novel biomarker to differentiate between normal, benign, and cancerous breast biopsy tissues

G K, AV and Gogoi, G and Kachappilly, MC and Rangarajan, A and Pandya, HJ (2023) Label-free multimodal electro-thermo-mechanical (ETM) phenotyping as a novel biomarker to differentiate between normal, benign, and cancerous breast biopsy tissues. In: Journal of Biological Engineering, 17 (1).

[img]
Preview
PDF
Jou_bio_eng_17_2023.pdf - Published Version

Download (5MB) | Preview
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13036-023-00388-y

Abstract

Background: Technologies for quick and label-free diagnosis of malignancies from breast tissues have the potential to be a significant adjunct to routine diagnostics. The biophysical phenotypes of breast tissues, such as its electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties (ETM), have the potential to serve as novel markers to differentiate between normal, benign, and malignant tissue. Results: We report a system-of-biochips (SoB) integrated into a semi-automated mechatronic system that can characterize breast biopsy tissues using electro-thermo-mechanical sensing. The SoB, fabricated on silicon using microfabrication techniques, can measure the electrical impedance (Z), thermal conductivity (K), mechanical stiffness (k), and viscoelastic stress relaxation (R) of the samples. The key sensing elements of the biochips include interdigitated electrodes, resistance temperature detectors, microheaters, and a micromachined diaphragm with piezoresistive bridges. Multi-modal ETM measurements performed on formalin-fixed tumour and adjacent normal breast biopsy samples from N = 14 subjects were able to differentiate between invasive ductal carcinoma (malignant), fibroadenoma (benign), and adjacent normal (healthy) tissues with a root mean square error of 0.2419 using a Gaussian process classifier. Carcinoma tissues were observed to have the highest mean impedance (110018.8 ± 20293.8 Ω) and stiffness (0.076 ± 0.009 kNm�1) and the lowest thermal conductivity (0.189 ± 0.019 Wm�1 K�1) amongst the three groups, while the fibroadenoma samples had the highest percentage relaxation in normalized load (47.8 ± 5.12). Conclusions: The work presents a novel strategy to characterize the multi-modal biophysical phenotype of breast biopsy tissues to aid in cancer diagnosis from small-sized tumour samples. The methodology envisions to supplement the existing technology gap in the analysis of breast tissue samples in the pathology laboratories to aid the diagnostic workflow. © 2023, The Author(s).

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: Journal of Biological Engineering
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd
Additional Information: The copyright for this article belongs to author.
Department/Centre: Division of Biological Sciences > Molecular Reproduction, Development & Genetics
Division of Electrical Sciences > Electronic Systems Engineering (Formerly Centre for Electronic Design & Technology)
Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Centre for Biosystems Science and Engineering
Date Deposited: 28 Feb 2024 11:52
Last Modified: 28 Feb 2024 11:52
URI: https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/83640

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item