Experimental comparison of MCF7 and MCF10A response to low intensity ultrasound

The low-intensity ultrasound effects on MCF7 (human breast adenocarcinoma) and MCF10A (healthy breast cells) have been investigated at different sonication protocol to probe the effectiveness and the selectivity of the ultrasound (US) treatment and to understand the implications between cell mortality, biomechanical interactions and cell elastic modulus. Experiments performed at fixed and variable frequency demonstrated the effectiveness of some protocols in killing carcinogenic cells and the healthy cells insensitivity. Variation of elastic properties of MCF7 cells exposed to US under varying sonication conditions was examined. Sonication was carried out at fixed frequency (as it is usually done in therapy protocols), between 400kHz and 620kHz, following two protocols: (i) at fixed power output; (ii) at fixed voltage of the US generator. Evolution of cell stiffness during the US treatment was monitored via atomic force spectroscopy (AFS). It was found that cell mortality has a similar trend of variation with respect to sonication frequency regardless of the way specimens are exposed to US. Mechanical properties do not show a uniform trend with respect to frequency, but variations of Young’s modulus are more marked near the very low (400–480) kHz or very high frequencies (580–620) kHz. The observed variations may be related to mechanical interactions occurring in the cell culture, suggesting a primacy of the environment on other factors