Investigating tunneling nanotubes in ovarian cancer based on two-photon excitation FLIM-FRET

Precise and efficient cell-to-cell communication is critical to the growth and differentiation of organisms, the formation of various organism, the maintenance of tissue function and the coordination of their various physiological activities, especially to the growth and invasion of Cancer cells. Tunneling nanotubes (TNTs) were discovered as a new method of cell-to-cell communication in many cell lines. In this paper, we investigated TNTs-like structures in ovarian Cancer cells and proved their elements by fluorescent staining, which showed that TNTs are comprised of natural lipid bilayers with microtubules as the skeleton that can transmit ions and organelles between adjacent cells. We then used fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) based on two-photon excitation fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) (TP-FLIM-FRET) to detect material transport in TNTs. The experimental results showed that the number of TNTs have an impact on the drug treatment of Cancer cells, which provided a new perspective for TNTs involvement in Cancer treatment. Our results also showed that TP-FLIM-FRET would potentially become a new optical method for TNTs study.