Can structures that give butterfly winds their iridescent sheen be easily harnessed to improve cancer diagnosis? New research reported in Advanced Materials suggests that they can. When a biopsy, or tissue sample is taken to determine whether a person has cancer, the tissue has to be evaluated for fibrosis, in which fibrous tissue accumulates. The extent of fibrosis can help show what stage that cancer may be too. But it can be challenging to measure that extent with current techniques, noted senior study author Lisa Poulikakos, a professor at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
Right now, staining methods are used to label certain structures in tissue samples, and then these results must be interpreted. But that interpretation is not uniform from one pathologist to another. But these evaluations might improve with better techniques.
Morpho butterflies carry structures that can manipulate light in their wings. The researchers discovered that when a biopsy was placed on a Morpho butterfly wing and viewed with a standard microscope, they were able to determine whether a patient was in an early or late stage of cancer without using stains or expensive equipment.
"We can apply this technique using standard optical microscopes that clinics already have," said Poulikakos. "And it's more objective and quantitative than what is currently available."
Paula Kirya, first study author UCSD graduate student, had studied Morpho butterfly wings as an undergraduate student researcher, and had the idea for this technique.
There are micro- and nanostructures in the Morpho wing that react to polarized light. Collagen fibers in fibrotic tissue also weakly interact with polarized light. The butterfly wing can boost this weak signal, so that the characteristics of the collagen fibers can be seen more clearly. These characteristics can then be used to measure the density and organization of collagen in the biopsy.
The investigators even created a qualitative approach. Their method was validated and also compared to other methods with human breast cancer biopsy samples. The work showed how this simple tool may dramatically improve cancer diagnosis, at low cost and without the need for special equipment.
The researchers suggested it may apply to the diagnostics of other diseases involving fibrosis as well.
Sources: University of California San Diego, Advanced Materials
