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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 27, 2025

Micromanipulation of Circulating Tumor Cells for Downstream Molecular Analysis and Metastatic Potential Assessment

Micromanipulation of Circulating Tumor Cells for Downstream Molecular Analysis and Metastatic Potential Assessment

Published on: May 14, 2019

Circulating Tumor Cell Cluster Sorting by Size and Asymmetry.

¹Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London, UK. s.au@imperial.ac.uk.

Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.)

|June 10, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters are key drivers of metastasis. New microfluidic methods effectively isolate these rare CTC clusters from blood, preserving their viability for clinical research.

Keywords:

Aggregates Circulating tumor cell clusters Isolation Microfluidics Sorting

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Last Updated: Jul 27, 2025

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Published on: May 14, 2019

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Area of Science:

Oncology
Biotechnology
Microfluidics

Background:

Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters are potent initiators of metastasis.
CTC clusters hold significant potential as clinical biomarkers.
Existing methods for isolating individual CTCs often fail to capture or may damage CTC clusters.

Purpose of the Study:

To describe the fabrication and operation of a novel two-stage continuous microfluidic chip.
To enable the isolation and recovery of viable CTC clusters from biological fluids.

Main Methods:

Fabrication of a two-stage continuous microfluidic chip.
Utilizing deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) for cell separation.
Isolation and recovery of CTC clusters from blood samples.

Main Results:

The microfluidic chip successfully isolates viable CTC clusters.
The method preserves the integrity of CTC clusters during processing.
Deterministic lateral displacement proves effective for CTC cluster separation.

Conclusions:

The described microfluidic chip offers an effective solution for capturing viable CTC clusters.
This technique advances the potential of CTC clusters as biomarkers for metastasis.
Viable CTC cluster isolation is crucial for understanding metastatic processes.