Related Experiment Video For circulating tumor cells
Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Capture and Release of Viable Circulating Tumor Cells from Blood
Published on: October 28, 2016
Direct Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells in Whole Blood Using Time-Resolved Luminescent Lanthanide Nanoprobes
Hanhan Guo1,2, Xiaorong Song1, Wen Lei3
1State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of, Functional Nanostructures, Fujian Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350002, China.
Abstract:
The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is crucial to early cancer diagnosis and the evaluation of cancer metastasis. However, it remains challenging due to the scarcity of CTCs in the blood. Herein, we report an ultrasensitive platform for the direct detection of CTCs using luminescent lanthanide nanoprobes. These were designed to recognize the epithelial cell adhesion molecules on cancer cells, allowing signal amplification through dissolution-enhanced time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) and the elimination of short-lived autofluorescence interference. This enabled the direct detection of blood breast-cancer cells with a limit of detection down to 1 cell/well of a 96-well plate. Moreover, blood CTCs (≥10 cells mL-1 ) can be detected in cancer patients with a detection rate of 93.9 % (14/15 patients). We envision that this ultrasensitive detection platform with excellent practicality may provide an effective strategy for early cancer diagnosis and prognosis evaluation.
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