An adhesion-based method for rapid and low-cost isolation of circulating tumor cells
Noninvasive monitoring of cancer through circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is hampered long by unsatisfactory CTCs testing techniques. Efficient isolation of CTCs in a rapid and price-favorable way from billions of leukocytes is crucial for testing. We developed a new method based on the stronger adhesive power of CTCs versus leukocytes to sensitively isolate CTCs. Using a BSA-coated microplate and low-speed centrifuge, this method could easily separate cancer cells within 20 min at a very low cost. The capture ratio can reach 70.7-86.6% in various cancer cell lines (breast/lung/liver/cervical/colorectal cancer) covering different epithelial-mesenchymal transformation (EMT) phenotypes and cell sizes, demonstrating the potential for efficient pan-cancer CTCs detection. Moreover, the label-free process can well preserve cell viability (∼99%) to fit downstream DNA/RNA sequencing. A novel technique for non-destructive and rapid enrichment of CTCs has been devised. It has enabled the successful isolation of rare tumor cells in the patient blood sample and pleural effusion, highlighting a promising future of this method in clinical translation.
Journal
Clinica Chimica ActaAuthors
Funding
Southern Medical University Grant 2020C001Southern Medical University Grant 2022J001National Key Research and Development Program of China Grant 2021YFA1300604National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 81672076National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 81802116National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 82102493National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars Grant 82025024Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province FundingNatural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province for Distinguished Young Scholars Grant 2021A1515011633Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Program key projects Grant 202102020705Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Program key projects Grant 202201010998Medical Science and Technology Foundation of Guangdong Province Grant 2021112321543877