Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) originate from the primary tumor mass and enter into the peripheral bloodstream. CTCs hold the key to understanding the biology of metastasis and also play a vital role in cancer diagnosis, prognosis, disease monitoring, and personalized therapy. However, CTCs are rare in blood and hard to isolate. Additionally, the viability of CTCs can easily be compromised under high shear stress while releasing them from a surface. The heterogeneity of CTCs in biomarker expression makes their isolation quite challenging; the isolation efficiency and specificity of current approaches need to be improved. Nanostructured substrates have emerged as a promising biosensing platform since they provide better isolation sensitivity at the cost of specificity for CTC isolation. This review discusses major challenges faced by CTC isolation techniques and focuses on nanostructured substrates as a platform for CTC isolation.

中文翻译：

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用于分离循环肿瘤细胞的纳米结构基质

循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）起源于原发肿瘤块并进入外周血流。CTC 是了解转移生物学的关键，也在癌症诊断、预后、疾病监测和个性化治疗中发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，CTC 在血液中很少见且难以分离。此外，当 CTC 从表面释放时，它们的活力在高剪切应力下很容易受到损害。CTC 在生物标志物表达方面的异质性使得它们的分离非常具有挑战性；当前方法的隔离效率和特异性需要提高。纳米结构基质已成为一种有前途的生物传感平台，因为它们以牺牲 CTC 分离特异性为代价提供了更好的分离灵敏度。本综述讨论了 CTC 分离技术面临的主要挑战，并重点关注作为 CTC 分离平台的纳米结构基底。