Related Experiment Videos
Microfluidic isolation of platelet-covered circulating tumor cells
Xiaocheng Jiang1, Keith H K Wong, Aimal H Khankhel
1Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA. sstott@mgh.harvard.edu mtoner@mgh.harvard.edu.
Lab on a Chip
|September 22, 2017
Summary
Researchers developed a microfluidic platform to isolate "stealth" circulating tumor cells (CTCs) by targeting surface platelets. This novel method improves cancer metastasis research and diagnostics by capturing hard-to-detect tumor cells.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Biotechnology
- Microfluidics
Background:
- Platelets play a crucial role in cancer metastasis by supporting tumor cell survival and immune evasion.
- Platelet-covered circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are challenging to isolate using conventional methods due to masked surface markers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a microfluidic platform for isolating platelet-covered CTCs using satellite platelets as a universal marker.
- To enable the capture of both epithelial and mesenchymal CTCs, overcoming limitations of marker-dependent techniques.
Main Methods:
- A two-step microfluidic approach involving hydrodynamic size-based sorting to remove free platelets.
- Immunoaffinity capture of platelet-covered CTCs using a herringbone micromixing device.
Main Results:
- Successful isolation of CTCs from patient samples: 66% lung, 60% breast (epithelial), and 83% melanoma (mesenchymal).
- Observation of distinct CTC populations heavily coated with platelets and CTC-leukocyte clusters.
Conclusions:
- The developed microfluidic platform effectively isolates 'stealth' CTCs, offering a broadly applicable method for CTC enrichment.
- This technique may reveal overlooked biological insights into blood-borne metastasis and cancer immunology by characterizing cloaked CTCs.