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Microfluidics-based High-throughput Circulating Tumor Cell Sorting and Single-cell Sequencing Technology
Published on: November 14, 2025
704
Clusters of Circulating Tumor Cells: a Biophysical and Technological Perspective
Sam H Au1,2,3, Jon Edd1, Daniel A Haber4,5,6
1Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering
|December 12, 2017
Summary
Circulating tumor cell clusters drive cancer metastasis. New technologies, like microfluidics, help study these clusters for better cancer diagnosis, treatment, and preventing spread.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Biotechnology
- Cell Biology
Background:
- Metastasis is the primary cause of cancer mortality.
- Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters are potent drivers of metastasis.
- Understanding CTC cluster behavior is crucial for effective cancer treatment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent advances in understanding CTC clusters.
- To highlight enabling technologies for CTC cluster research.
- To explore the potential applications of CTC clusters in oncology.
Main Methods:
- Review of current literature on CTC clusters and related technologies.
- Emphasis on microfluidic strategies for isolating CTC clusters from blood.
- Discussion of methods for analyzing CTC cluster characteristics.
Main Results:
- Intercellular adhesion in CTC clusters is increasingly understood.
- Microfluidic technologies enable isolation and study of CTC clusters.
- CTC clusters show potential for early cancer diagnosis and drug screening.
Conclusions:
- Continued technological development is key to understanding metastasis.
- CTC clusters offer promising avenues for precision oncology.
- Targeting CTC clusters may lead to novel anti-metastatic therapies.
