Engineered decomposable multifunctional nanobioprobes for capture and release of rare cancer cells

Early detection and isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can provide helpful information for diagnosis, and functional readouts of CTCs can give deep insight into tumor biology. In this work, we presented a new strategy for simple isolation and release of CTCs using engineered nanobioprobes. The nanobioprobes were constructed by Ca(2+)-assisted layer-by-layer assembly of alginate onto the surface of fluorescent-magnetic nanospheres, followed by immobilization of biotin-labeled anti-EpCAM. As-prepared anti-EpCAM-functionalized nanobioprobes were characterized with integrated features of anti-EpCAM-directed specific recognition, fluorescent magnetic-driven cell capture, and EDTA-assisted cell release, which can specifically recognize 10(2) SK-BR-3 cells spiked in 1 mL of lysed blood or human whole blood samples with 89% and 86% capture efficiency, respectively. Our proof-of-concept experiments demonstrated that 65% of captured SK-BR-3 cells were released after EDTA treatment, and nearly 70% of released SK-BR-3 cells kept their viability, which may facilitate molecular profiling and functional readouts of CTCs.