Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 5, 2026
09:45
Microfluidics-based High-throughput Circulating Tumor Cell Sorting and Single-cell Sequencing Technology
Published on: November 14, 2025
985
Suppressing Blood-Cell Migration Lag via Dean-Cycle Phase Regulation Enables High-Purity CTC Enrichment in an
Taihang Wu1,2, Haozheng Li1, Xiange Sun1
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, Daping Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China.
Micromachines
|May 4, 2026
Summary
This study introduces a novel microfluidic chip design for efficiently isolating rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood. The new method enhances purity and throughput for liquid biopsy applications.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Microfluidics
- Cancer Diagnostics
Background:
- Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are crucial liquid biopsy biomarkers for cancer detection and monitoring.
- Current methods for CTC enrichment face challenges in purity and throughput due to cell rarity and hydrodynamic interactions in microfluidic devices.
- Existing spiral microfluidic designs can suffer from broadened cell streams at high loading, reducing separation efficiency.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a novel Dean-cycle phase-regulated double-spiral microfluidic chip for high-purity, high-throughput CTC enrichment.
- To mitigate stream broadening and improve CTC-blood cell separation using a new microfluidic design.
- To enable label-free enrichment of CTCs for downstream analysis in cancer patients.
Main Methods:
- A Dean-cycle phase-regulated double-spiral microfluidic chip (SDMC) and its scaled-up parallel array (ASDMC) were designed and implemented.
- The ASDMC was optimized for processing whole blood at a hematocrit of 4% without cell lysis or antibody labeling.
- Performance was evaluated using spiked tumor cell lines and pilot clinical testing on patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Main Results:
- The ASDMC achieved a high sample throughput of 1200 μL·min-1.
- Mean recovery rates of 98.8% for spiked tumor cells and 93.3% white blood cell (WBC) depletion efficiency were observed.
- Pilot clinical testing identified CTCs (CK+CD45-DAPI+) in enriched fractions, with counts trending higher in advanced disease stages (4-34 cells·mL-1).
Conclusions:
- The Dean-cycle phase-regulated double-spiral microfluidic platform offers a scalable, label-free solution for efficient CTC enrichment.
- The design effectively mitigates blood cell migration lag, enhancing CTC purity and recovery.
- These findings support further validation for clinical applications in larger patient cohorts.
