Electric Impedance Monitoring of Cell Migration Following Irradiation*

Cell migration is a crucial step in cancer metastasis, the complex process which accounts for over 90% of cancer-related deaths. There is emerging clinical evidence that radiotherapeutic doses meant to kill cancer cells can promote metastasis by enhancing cell migration. Here we quantify radiation-induced changes in the migration of three different cancer cell lines in order to ascertain the lineage-dependence of the pro-metastatic effect of radiation.
We subjected K562 (erythroid), HL60 (myeloid) and HCN2 (neuronal) cancer cells to low dose and high dose ionizing radiation by means of a radiotherapy-grade cell irradiator (CellRad, Faxitron). We used a commercial impedance sensing device (ECIS®) to assess the migration of the cells following irradiation.
The migration all three cell lines in ECIS, was significantly altered by the X-rays. We will present results comparing the pro-metastatic effects of X-rays on the three cell lines as well as evidence of cytoskeletal alterations behind the measured changes in migration, potentially providing a new rationale for the improvement of radiotherapy protocols and the search for anti-metastasis drugs.