Capture and detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is of crucial importance in the early diagnosis, prognosis evaluation and personalized therapy of cancer. Here, we report a facile microfluidic nanoplatform integrated with zwitterion-functionalized electrospun polyethylenimine/polyvinyl alcohol (PEI/PVA) nanofibers for efficient capture and intact release of CTCs. We show that PEI/PVA nanofibers functionalized with a zwitterion of 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) are able to have significantly reduced nonspecific adsorption of proteins and blood cells. Simultaneously, arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) peptide modified onto the surface of nanofibers via an acid sensitive bond (benzoic imine) renders them with an ability to specifically capture cancer cells or CTCs overexpressing avb3 integrin and to rapidly and non-destructively release CTCs under an acidic pH condition (pH=6.8). The dynamic capture assay of cancer cells as well as the detection of cancer patient blood have proven that the model cancer cells or CTCs can be isolated with high capture efficiency (91.8%) and considerable purity (33.1%) in a time period of 30 min and can be detached from the nanofibrous substrates without compromising the cell viability. These results suggest that the developed microfluidic chip integrated with zwitterion-functionalized PEI/PVA nanofibers may be potentially used for capturing and detecting CTCs for clinical cancer diagnosis applications.

Zwitterion-functionalized PEI/PVA nanofibers embedded in a microfluidic chip for efficient capture and intact release of circulating tumor cells

255th National Meeting (2018)

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