Microfluidic Vortexes for Liquid Biopsy of Circulating Tumor Cells

Interest in liquid biopsies continues to grow, particularly for metastatic cancer. However, once you draw the blood or other body fluid, the problem becomes how to separate the tumor cells from red and white blood cells and other matrix components.

On the recent past, several techniques, such as field flow fractionation (FFF) and immunoprecipitation, have been proposed for isolating circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from body fluids, including blood.

However, I’m particularly impressed with a novel microfluidic instrument, the VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System from Vortex BioSciences (Menlo Park, CA). The VTX-1 uses an array of vortex-generating chambers molded on a chip to selectively isolate CTCs from whole blood. CTCs are usually much larger and less dense than other matrix constituents. Thus, they go to the perimeter of the vortex chamber, while the smaller constituents such as red and white blood cells race on through.

The Vortex approach produces label- and contact-free, intact CTCs. These cells are suitable for further study for research or diagnostics. (see Lemaire, C.A.; Liu, S.Z. et al. Fast and label-free isolation of circulating tumor cells from blood: from a research microfluidic platform to an automated fluidic instrument, VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System. SLAS Technol Feb 2018, 23[1], 16–29).

Robert L. Stevenson, Ph.D., is Editor Emeritus, American Laboratory/Labcompare; e-mail: [email protected]

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