Sensitive and quantitative analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood have significant impacts in cancer biology and clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, CTC detection remain a major challenge due to their scarcity and heterogeneous problem. This work presents a technology platform that can potentially detect CTCs in the whole blood of cancer patients with high sensitivity. The platform is based on innovative combination of immunomagnetic separation, multiplexed targeting, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy and microfluidics with dual magnetic-optical iron oxide-gold (IO-Au) core-shell nanoparticles (NPs). By coating dual functional NPs with 4 different Raman reporters, we made 4 color IO-Au SERS NPs targeting epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and insulin growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R). Using the multiplexed multicolor IO-Au NPs, we demonstrated that spiked SK-BR-3 breast cancer cells in whole blood can be dually captured with magnetic separation and detected with SERS on a microfluidic device, with markedly improved detection sensitivity as compared to the single color NPs. The use of dual magnetic-optical nanoparticles in combination with high sensitivity and specificity SERS technology and miniaturized device opened new opportunities for the detection of circulating tumor cells in cancer patients.

Hybrid nanoparticles for multiplexed isolation and detection of circulating tumor cells in whole blood

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.