Digital Holographic Microscopy of Living Hela Cells Before and After Enzyme Treatments

We used digital holographic microscopy (DHM) to assess the deformation of HeLa cancer cells induced by trypsin treatment. Cell deformation with 0.03% or 0.05% trypsin was accurately visualized as micrographs and three-dimensional (3D) tomograms of the cell components based on refractive indices (RI). Via X-Y cross-section analysis of the RI maps, outbreaks of particle-like structures at the cell surface and inside the cell body were effectively represented as RI distributions. This is the first study to report the trypsin-induced deformation of living HeLa cells by DHM without any pre-treatment, such as fluorescent labeling. These results substantiate the potential of DHM techniques to study the effects of enzymes on living cells.