High contrast breast cancer biomarker semi-quantification and immunohistochemistry imaging using upconverting nanoparticles

Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar; Hui Ma; Katarzyna Komolibus; Gokhan Dumlupinar; Matthias J Mickert; Krzysztof Krawczyk; Stefan Andersson-Engels

doi:10.1364/BOE.504939

High contrast breast cancer biomarker semi-quantification and immunohistochemistry imaging using upconverting nanoparticles

Biomed Opt Express. 2024 Jan 19;15(2):900-909. doi: 10.1364/BOE.504939. eCollection 2024 Feb 1.

Authors

Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar¹, Hui Ma^{1

2}, Katarzyna Komolibus¹, Gokhan Dumlupinar^{1

2}, Matthias J Mickert³, Krzysztof Krawczyk³, Stefan Andersson-Engels^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Biophotonics@Tyndall, IPIC, Tyndall National Institute, Lee Maltings Complex, Dyke Parade, T12R5CP, Cork, Ireland.
² Department of Physics, University College Cork, College Road, Cork, T12 K8AF, Ireland.
³ Lumito AB, Mårtenstorget 5, SE-223 51 Lund, Sweden.

Abstract

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Current clinical treatment stratification practices open up an avenue for significant improvements, potentially through advancements in immunohistochemistry (IHC) assessments of biopsies. We report a high contrast upconverting nanoparticles (UCNP) labeling to distinguish different levels of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) in HER2 control pellet arrays (CPAs) and HER2-positive breast cancer tissue. A simple Fourier transform algorithm trained on CPAs was sufficient to provide a semi-quantitative HER2 assessment tool for breast cancer tissues. The UCNP labeling had a signal-to-background ratio of 40 compared to the negative control.