Issue 5, 2020

The label-free separation and culture of tumor cells in a microfluidic biochip

Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from liquid biopsy have shown a strong correlation to the clinical outcome of cancer patients. The enumeration and cytological analysis of CTCs have attracted increasing efforts for cancer disease management amid immunotherapy and personalized medicine. However, both enumeration and cytological analysis are challenging due to the rarity of CTCs and the lack of integrated solutions for the minimal risk of cell loss in the course of CTC procurement. We report a simple microfluidic chip permitting a one-stop solution for streamlining the on-chip cell separation, capture, immunofluorescence assay and/or in situ culture of isolated cells devoid of risky manual steps. Our results showed effective trapping of single cells, doublets and cell lumps isolated from blood in the same device. On-chip immunostaining revealed normal cell morphology and the characterization of cell expansion uncovered an altered cell growth curve with a reduced lag phase as compared to the conventional culture despite closely matching cell growth rates. The cells were viable and functional for as long as 11 days inside our chip and cell migration was also readily observed, with lumps showing greater aggressiveness than single cells. With these results, we expect promising applications of our one-stop solution for liquid biopsy via CTCs.

Graphical abstract: The label-free separation and culture of tumor cells in a microfluidic biochip

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Oct 2019
Accepted
12 Dec 2019
First published
13 Dec 2019

Analyst, 2020,145, 1706-1715

The label-free separation and culture of tumor cells in a microfluidic biochip

J. Zhou, C. Tu, Y. Liang, B. Huang, Y. Fang, X. Liang and X. Ye, Analyst, 2020, 145, 1706 DOI: 10.1039/C9AN02092F

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