The detection and isolation of rare cells has become enormously important in cancer, prenatal diagnostics, stem cells and other fields. Particularly in the clinical management of cancer, enumeration of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has been shown to have prognostic value. However, CTCs enumeration provides limited information on cancer treatment, extraction of additional data requires capture and collection of viable CTCs. Existing commercial devices often lack to provide live cells and therefore do not allow down stream analysis such as proteomics and therapy screening. For research and diagnostic applications, a rapid, simple isolation technique suitable for use with whole blood with minimal pre-processing is needed. We have developed such a device in a unique nano-machined magnetic sifter assembly: MagSifterTM. In MagSifter, flow is three-dimensional, rather than two-dimensional as is typical of planar microfluidics devices. Low-cost, conventional NdFeB magnets produce extremely high magnetic field gradients across very short distances within the device, facilitating efficient capture of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) conjugated with specific antibodies, which are bounding antigens on the target cell surface. Immunomagnetic capture thus positively selects for CTCs, which are retained on the MagSifter, while ~&gt;40µm pores allow non-target cells to pass through. A perpendicular-flow design and a macroporous structure (&gt;30% of surface area is open) provide high flow rates and resistance to clogging, thus enabling larger volumes of blood to be processed in short analysis times. The MagSifterTM technology enables a high isolation rate of viable CTCs for downstream analysis directly from whole blood samples. By delivering live, primary CTC samples, MagSifterTM technology enables new screening and diagnostic assays in the CTC field and could benefit both the research and medical community.

Isolation of live CTCs for downstream analysis using the MagSifterTM: Rare cell isolation device

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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