Materials and microfluidics: enabling the efficient isolation and analysis of circulating tumour cells

Abstract

We present a critical review of microfluidic technologies and material effects on the analyses of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) selected from the peripheral blood of cancer patients. CTCs are a minimally invasive source of clinical information that can be used to prognose patient outcome, monitor minimal residual disease, assess tumour resistance to therapeutic agents, and potentially screen individuals for the early diagnosis of cancer. The performance of CTC isolation technologies depends on microfluidic architectures, the underyling principles of isolation, and the choice of materials. In this review, we present a critical review of the fundamental principles used in these technologies and discuss their performance. We also give context to how CTC isolation technologies enable downstream analysis of selected CTCs in terms of detecting genetic mutations and gene expression that could be used to gain information that may affect patient outcome.

Circulating Tumor Cells in Gastrointestinal Cancers: Current Status and Future Perspectives

“…At present, it has been well-recognized that the biological and physical characteristics of CTCs are obviously different from those of other cells in the blood (8). Consequently, many capture and identification technologies based on different CTCs features are gradually being developed to pursue the ultimate goal of achieving CTCs enrichment with high specificity and sensitivity (9,(11)(12)(13). For CTC enrichment, the isolation of CTCs is usually the first step, and the characterization of CTCs (the second step) further distinguishes the CTCs from the remaining normal blood cells.…”

“…Consequently, a considerable amount of scientific literature has published over the past decade, occurring in parallel with technical progress that has propelled this field forward. To date, a number of technologies based on the biological or physical properties of CTCs have been developed for achieving CTCs isolation and identification (9,(11)(12)(13), which lay the technical foundation for conducting more clinical research to explore the clinical value of CTCs detection in predicting patient survival, customizing therapy choices, monitoring response/resistance, and evaluating distant metastasis in numerous types of cancer (14). Over the past few years, our group has been working on CTCs detection methods and has developed a variety of methods based on the different biophysical characteristics of CTCs (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24); these studies have enabled us to efficiently capture CTCs in the peripheral blood and to further analyze the prognostic value of quantitative and qualitative CTCs analysis in gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies (25)(26)(27).…”

Leukocyte‐Repelling Biomimetic Immunomagnetic Nanoplatform for High‐Performance Circulating Tumor Cells Isolation

“…Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are malignant cells shed by solid tumors into the bloodstream, may provide indicative evaluation information for therapeutic efficacy, cancer metastases, as well as cancer prognosis . However, the extremely rare occurrence rate (one to hundreds of CTCs per mL blood) severely impeded the precise enumeration and deeper study of CTCs . Therefore, increasing number of CTCs isolation and enumeration platforms are being reported gradually .…”

Inner Surface Design of Functional Microchannels for Microscale Flow Control

“…Microfluidic devices are miniaturized fluid handling systems, regulating small amount of fluids travelling through networks consisting of tiny channels with diameter typically ranging from tens to hundreds of micrometers . Microfluidic systems require small volumes of reagents and render fast response due to their increased surface area and shortened diffusion paths, so in a vision, they promise to offer cheaper and faster equipment capable of most chemical and biological analysis while saving time and footprints .…”