Capturing and Clinical Applications of Circulating Tumor Cells with Wave Microfluidic Chip.

As a "liquid biopsy," circulating tumor cell (CTC) enumeration with microfluidic chips has great significance in cancer prognosis. CTCs carry significant information as the original tumor. Integrated microfluidic chips are combining with affinity- and physical-based such as wave chip offers a new way to segregate CTCs. In this work, we further study capturing clinical applications of CTCs with wave chip. When cell suspension moves across the microposts array, CTCs squeeze out from narrow gaps organized by microposts. This movement renders CTCs to obtain a tilted velocity to fluid direction. This tilted velocity would direct CTCs to be captured by the smaller neighboring gaps next array. Simultaneously, interaction or friction time is longer due to barrier of modified microposts. These microposts would be effective for realizing binding of antigen and antibody. Therefore, both antibody-coated and physical-based isolations could be combined in isolating CTCs. Capture percentage concentrated on the first several arrays is shown theoretically and experimentally. Efficient capture could be obtained for artificial patient blood. Clinically, CTCs were tested positive for three metastatic human breast cancer patient samples. This wave chip is prospectively to be a valid tool for clinical enumeration of CTCs, carrying out anti-cancer drug assay.