Functionally-Relevant Morphological Profiling: A Tool to Assess Cellular Heterogeneity

Ross A Marklein; Johnny Lam; Murat Guvendiren; Kyung E Sung; Steven R Bauer

doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.10.007

Functionally-Relevant Morphological Profiling: A Tool to Assess Cellular Heterogeneity

Trends Biotechnol. 2018 Jan;36(1):105-118. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.10.007. Epub 2017 Nov 7.

Authors

Ross A Marklein¹, Johnny Lam¹, Murat Guvendiren², Kyung E Sung¹, Steven R Bauer³

Affiliations

¹ U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation, Silver Spring, MD 20993, USA.
² Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological, and Pharmaceutical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
³ U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation, Silver Spring, MD 20993, USA. Electronic address: steven.bauer@fda.hhs.gov.

PMID: 29126572
DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.10.007

Abstract

Heterogeneity in cell function has presented a significant hurdle to the successful clinical translation of many cellular therapies. Current techniques for assessing cell quality and the effects of microenvironmental cues and manufacturing processes on cell behavior often inadequately address heterogeneity due to issues such as population versus single-cell measurements and the therapeutic relevance and throughput/robustness of the assay. Due to the well-established relationship between morphology and cellular function, morphological profiling has become increasingly utilized to better understand functional heterogeneity and its impact on therapeutic development. In this review, we introduce an emerging field we term functionally-relevant morphological profiling with great potential to improve our understanding of cellular heterogeneity through discovering novel quality attributes, optimizing manufacturing, and screening drugs/biomaterials.

Keywords: biomaterials; cellular quality attributes; high-content imaging; high-throughput screening; morphology.

Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Cell Culture Techniques / methods
Cell Shape*
Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy / methods
Cytological Techniques / methods*
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
Microscopy / methods*
Optical Imaging / methods*
Technology, Pharmaceutical / methods