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Updated: Nov 29, 2025
Microfluidics-based High-throughput Circulating Tumor Cell Sorting and Single-cell Sequencing Technology
Published on: November 14, 2025
A Microfluidic Chip for Efficient Circulating Tumor Cells Enrichment, Screening, and Single-Cell RNA Sequencing
Fanghao Shi1,2, Fei Jia1,2, Zewen Wei1
1CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, Beijing, 100190, China.
A novel microfluidic chip integrates enrichment, isolation, and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for single-cell RNA sequencing. This method minimizes cell loss, enabling robust analysis of tumor heterogeneity and drug resistance.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Molecular Biology
- Oncology
Background:
- Single-cell RNA sequencing of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is crucial for understanding tumor heterogeneity, metastasis, and drug resistance.
- Current methods involve multiple steps (enrichment, characterization, isolation) that risk losing rare CTCs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop an integrated microfluidic chip for sequential enrichment, isolation, and characterization of CTCs at the single-cell level.
- To enable single-cell lysis and RNA sequencing on the same chip, minimizing sample loss.
Main Methods:
- Development of a microfluidic chip with integrated functions for blood clot filtration, single-cell isolation, identification, and lysate collection.
- Validation using tumor cells spiked into whole blood to assess the chip's efficacy for single-cell CTC RNA sequencing.
Main Results:
- The integrated microfluidic chip successfully performs sequential enrichment, isolation, and characterization of CTCs.
- Single CTC lysis and lysate collection were achieved on the chip.
- The chip demonstrated effectiveness in enabling single-cell CTC RNA sequencing when validated with spiked tumor cells.
Conclusions:
- The developed microfluidic chip offers an efficient, integrated approach for single-cell CTC analysis.
- This technology reduces sample loss and provides a foundation for comprehensive RNA expression profiling of individual CTCs.
- Facilitates deeper insights into tumor biology and treatment response.
