Hydrodynamic and label-free sorting of circulating tumor cells from whole blood

Geislinger, T. M., Stamp, M. E. M., Wixforth, A. and Franke, T. (2015) Hydrodynamic and label-free sorting of circulating tumor cells from whole blood. Applied Physics Letters, 107(20), 203702. (doi: 10.1063/1.4935563)

Abstract

We demonstrate continuous, passive, and label-free sorting of different in vitrocancercell lines (MV3, MCF7, and HEPG2) as model systems for circulating tumorcells (CTCs) from undiluted whole blood employing the non-inertial lift effect as driving force. This purely viscous, repulsive cell-wall interaction is sensitive to cell size and deformability differences and yields highly efficient cell separation and high enrichment factors. We show that the performance of the device is robust over a large range of blood cell concentrations and flow rates as well as for the different cell lines. The collected samples usually contain more than 90% of the initially injected CTCs and exhibit average enrichment factors of more than 20 for sorting from whole blood samples.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Franke, Professor Thomas
• Authors: Geislinger, T. M., Stamp, M. E. M., Wixforth, A., and Franke, T.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
• Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics
• ISSN: 0003-6951
• ISSN (Online): 1077-3118