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A Microfluidic Platform for High-throughput Single-cell Isolation and Culture
Published on: June 16, 2016
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Rare cell isolation and recovery on open-channel microfluidic chip
Taisuke Masuda1, Woneui Song1, Hayao Nakanishi2
1Department of Micro-Nano Systems Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
Plos One
|April 21, 2017
Summary
A new
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Cell Biology
- Oncology
Background:
- Accurate detection of rare cells is vital for disease research and clinical flow cytometry.
- Current methods for rare cell isolation can be challenging and may damage cells.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate a novel 'Rare cell sorter' device for isolating and recovering single rare cells.
- To assess the suitability of the recovered cells for downstream genetic analysis.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an open-channel microfluidic chip for rare cell isolation from whole blood.
- Targeted circulating tumor cells (CTCs) as the rare cell type.
- Conducted clinical experiments with samples from metastatic breast cancer patients and healthy volunteers.
Main Results:
- Successfully isolated and recovered single CTCs from patient blood samples.
- Observed a significant difference in CTC counts between cancer patients and healthy volunteers.
- RNA integrity assays confirmed the mildness of the isolation and recovery process for gene analysis.
Conclusions:
- The 'Rare cell sorter' effectively isolates and recovers rare cells, such as CTCs.
- The developed method is gentle enough for subsequent gene expression studies.
- This technology holds promise for advancing clinical diagnostics and disease monitoring.
