Process simplification and structure design of parallelized microslit isolator for physical property-based capture of tumor cells

Numerous attempts have been made to develop efficient systems to purify trace amounts of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples. However, current technologies are limited by complexities in device fabrication, system design, and process operability. Here we describe a facile, scalable, and highly efficient approach to physically capturing CTCs using a rationally designed microfluidic isolator with an array of microslit channels. The wide but thin microslit channels with a depth of several micrometers selectively capture CTCs, which are larger and less deformable than other blood cells, while allowing other blood cells to just flow through. We investigated in detail the effects of the microchannel geometry and operating parameters on the capture efficiency and selectivity of several types of cultured tumor cells spiked in blood samples as the CTC model. Additionally, in situ post-capture staining of the captured cells was demonstrated to investigate the system's applicability to clinical cancer diagnosis. The presented approach is simple in operation but significantly effective in capturing specific cells and hence it may have great potential in implementating cell physics-based CTC isolation techniques for cancer liquid biopsy.

Automated summary

This study presents a simple, scalable, and efficient method to physically capture circulating tumor cells (CTCs) using a microfluidic isolator with microslit channels. The wide but thin microslit channels selectively capture CTCs while allowing other blood cells to flow through, resulting in a highly effective and easy-to-use system. The effects of microchannel geometry and operating parameters on capture efficiency and selectivity were investigated, and the system's applicability to clinical cancer diagnosis was demonstrated.