Circulating Tumour Cell Isolation Technologies: From Biomarker-Dependent to Charge-Based Capture
This review compared CTC isolation technologies including magnetic bead, microfluidic, and microfiltration platforms with a newer biomarker-independent approach using surface-charged superparamagnetic nanoprobes. The charge-based method captures CTCs across different epithelial-mesenchymal transition subpopulations, addressing a key limitation of antigen-dependent platforms in heterogeneous tumour populations.
The original study
Circulating tumor cell isolation for cancer diagnosis and prognosis.
- Authors
- Deng Z, Wu S, Wang Y, Shi D
- Journal
- EBioMedicine
- Type
- Journal Article, Review
- PMID
- 36041264
Original abstract
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are tumor cells that shed from the primary tumor and intravasate into the peripheral blood circulation system responsible for metastasis. Sensitive detection of CTCs from clinical samples can serve as an effective tool in cancer diagnosis and prognosis through liquid biopsy. Current CTC detection technologies mainly reply on the biomarker-mediated platforms including magnetic beads, microfluidic chips or size-sensitive microfiltration which can compromise detection sensitivity due to tumor heterogeneity. A more sensitive, biomarker independent CTCs isolation technique has been recently developed with the surface-charged superparamagnetic nanoprobe capable of different EMT subpopulation CTC capture from 1 mL clinical blood. In this review, this new strategy is compared with the conventional techniques on biomarker specificity, impact of protein corona, effect of glycolysis on cell surface charge, and accurate CTC identification. Correlations between CTC enumeration and molecular profiling in clinical blood and cancer prognosis are provided for clinical cancer management.