An adhesion-based method for rapid and low-cost isolation of circulating tumor cells

• Published in: Clinica chimica acta 2023-07, Vol.547, p.117421-117421, Article 117421
• Main Authors: Ye, Xinyi, Zou, Jianjun, Chen, Jing, Luo, Shihua, Zhao, Qianwen, Situ, Bo, Zheng, Lei, Wang, Qian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adhesive difference; Biomarkers, Tumor; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Separation - methods; Circulating tumor cells; Female; Humans; Liver Neoplasms; Low-cost and rapid detection; Lung Neoplasms; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - pathology; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms
• ISSN: 0009-8981; 1873-3492
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cca.2023.117421

[Display omitted] •Based on adhesion capability, this study developed a novel approach for detecting circulating tumor cells.•The label-free technique overcomes the restrictions of EMT phenotypic heterogeneity and cell size, enabling effective identification of pan-cancer CTCs.•The sensitive and specific detection could easily separate cancer cells within 20 min at a very low cost.•The study can well preserve cell viability (∼99%) to fit ex vivo culture and downstream DNA/RNA sequencing. 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.