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

Background: Noninvasive monitoring of cancer through circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is hampered long by un-satisfactory CTCs testing techniques. Efficient isolation of CTCs in a rapid and price-favorable way from billions of leukocytes is crucial for testing. Methods: 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. Result: 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, demon-strating the potential for efficient pan-cancer CTCs detection. Moreover, the label-free process can well preserve cell viability (similar to 99%) to fit downstream DNA/RNA sequencing. Conclusions: 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.

Automated summary

This study developed a novel method based on the stronger adhesive power of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) compared to leukocytes, which can efficiently isolate CTCs in a rapid and cost-effective manner. It has demonstrated high capture ratios in various cancer cell lines and has the potential for pan-cancer CTCs detection.