Isolation of Rare Circulating Tumor Cells
Sunitha Nagrath et al.
Presentation by:
Keara Darragh, Matthew Faw, and Will Plautz
Overview of Metastasis and CTCs
• Circulating tumor cells (CTCs)
•
Likely the origin of intractable metastatic
disease
• 1 CTC : 10^9 haematologic cells in the blood
of cancer patients
CTC chip better than existing methods
Immunomagnetic-bead
purification
•
Gross prognostic tool
(high/low risk)
• Isolates fewer CTCs with
very low purity (<1%) and
yield
• Multiple bulk semiautomated preparatory
steps
Circulating Tumor
Cell (CTC) Chip
•
First microfluidic device
that can successfully
isolate viable cells from
milliliter volumes of
whole blood
• High sensitivity,
selectivity, and yield
• Single step
What is Microfluidics?
• Deals with small volumes (fL, pL, nL, µL) of
fluids
•
Generally processed in a way that moves,
mixes, or separates the contents
• Microfluids act differently
•
Surface tension and low Reynolds number
become larger factors in the system
• Different types of microfluidics
•
Dealing with continuous-flow today
What is Microfluidics?
• Deals with small volumes (fL, pL, nL, µL) of
fluids
•
Generally processed in a way that moves,
mixes, or separates the contents
• Microfluids act differently
•
Surface tension and low Reynolds number
become larger factors in the system
• Different types of microfluidics
•
Dealing with continuous-flow today
What is Microfluidics?
• Deals with small volumes (fL, pL, nL, µL) of
fluids
•
Generally processed in a way that moves,
mixes, or separates the contents
• Microfluids act differently
•
Surface tension and low Reynolds number
become larger factors in the system
• Different types of microfluidics
•
Dealing with continuous-flow today
How Does the Chip Capture
Circulating Tumor Cells?
• 25 mm x 66 mm
silicon chip
• 78,000 microposts
• epCAM antibodies
CTC Isolating Microfluidic Device
25mm
Staining to Assess Purity
• Stains are used in order to identify malignant
cells from healthy cells.
• Malignant cells look different
•
•
•
Large cellular size
Relatively large nuclei
Visible nucleoli
Results and Applications
• Successfully identified CTCs in 115/116 samples
• Approximately 50% purity
• CTCs isolated (per ml):
•
•
NSCLC: 5-1,281
Breast: 5-174
• Monitor cancer
treatment response
Results and Applications
• Successfully identified CTCs in 115/116 samples
• Approximately 50% purity
• CTCs isolated (per ml):
•
•
NSCLC: 5-1,281
Breast: 5-174
• Monitor cancer
treatment response
Conclusion
•
First microfluidic device that can successfully
process milliliter volumes of whole blood
• High sensitivity, selectivity, and yield
• Single step
• Isolation of viable cells
• Allows for real time monitoring of cancer
progression in a non-invasive manner