Microfluidic Isolation of Cancer Cells: Overcoming the Liquid Biopsy Status Quo
Silvina Ribeiro-Samy, Researcher, International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL)
Cancer is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) shedding form the primary tumor into
circulation have the potential of invading other organs and causing
metastasis. The study of CTCscan provide non-invasive, continuous and
real-time information about the tumor burden, constituting the so-called
liquid biopsy. However, these cancer cells are extremely rare making
their isolation a very hard task. Current isolation technologies rely on
the membrane expression of the EpCAM protein. However, since CTCs are
known to undergo Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition, the suitability
and overall clinical relevance of EpCAM-based approaches for CTCs
detection are questionable. Hence, the study of CTCs has been hindered
so far by the limitations of current isolation technologies and their
limited availability.
We have developed a size-based rare cell capture device that comprises
different isolation areas design for specific isolation of CTCs from a
blood sample. Results showed good isolation yield while maintaining high
purity when isolating cancer cells with distinct phenotypes from whole
blood of metastatic colorectal cancer patients, and urine of early
bladder cancer patients. Also, the device was able to capture as many or
more CTCs compared to the gold standard CELLSEARCH CTC Test.
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