Isolation of tumor cells using size and deformation

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Oncology
• Cell Biology

Background:

• Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are crucial biomarkers for cancer metastasis detection and monitoring.
• Current methods for CTC isolation face challenges due to low cell numbers and lack of specific markers.
• Advancing CTC analysis requires efficient enrichment and isolation techniques for molecular characterization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and validate a micromachined device for enriching and isolating rare cells from peripheral circulation.
• To enable molecular analysis of isolated circulating tumor cells for non-invasive cancer diagnostics.
• To investigate gene expression profiles of CTCs for insights into metastasis.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a micromachined device with successively narrower channels and column arrays.
• Utilizing physical fractionation principles for cell separation based on size and flow dynamics.
• Testing the device with various tumor cell lines and human whole blood for isolation efficiency.

Main Results:

• The micromachined device successfully isolated all tested cancer cells from eight tumor cell lines.
• Fractionation of cancer cells from human whole blood was achieved without interference from blood cells.
• Intact cells or DNA could be extracted for subsequent molecular analysis.

Conclusions:

• The developed device offers a promising approach for the isolation of circulating tumor cells.
• This technology facilitates non-invasive patient monitoring, disease staging, and treatment efficacy assessment.
• Further research using gene expression profiling can enhance understanding of cancer metastasis.