Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) present in the blood of patients with non-hematological cancers are accessible sources for diagnosis and monitoring of cancers. By the aid of the ability of the anti-EpCAM antibody to recognize the epithelial cells, microsystem-based technologies provide robust means for effectively detecting CTCs in vitro. Considering the EpCAM expression is down-regulated during epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process, the amount of CTCs detected based on anti-EpCAM antibody is underestimated. In our study, the A549 cells targeting peptide (A-1 peptide), as the substitute of anti-EpCAM antibody, was introduced to microfluidic chip to capture A549 cells. Our results showed that both epithelial-like and mesenchymal-like A549 cells could efficiently be captured by the A-1 peptide modified microfluidic chip, and the capture efficiency for epithelial-like cells is comparable to that captured by the EpCAM antibody. Thus, we concluded that the peptide could be a better supplement to the EpCAM antibody for capturing CTCs in microfluidic system with broader spectrum.
Keywords: A-1 peptide; Circulating tumor cells; Epithelial-mesenchymal transition; Microfluidic chips.
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