Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) isolation from a blood sample plays an important role in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Microfluidics offers a great potential for cancer cell separation from the blood. Among the microfluidic-based methods for CTC separation, the inertial method as a passive method and magnetic method as an active method are two efficient well-established methods. Here, we investigated the combination of these two methods to separate CTCs from a blood sample in a single chip. Firstly, numerical simulations were performed to analyze the fluid flow within the proposed channel, and the particle trajectories within the inertial cell separation unit were investigated to determine/predict the particle trajectories within the inertial channel in the presence of fluid dynamic forces. Then, the designed device was fabricated using the soft-lithography technique. Later, the CTCs were conjugated with magnetic nanoparticles and Ep-CAM antibodies to improve the magnetic susceptibility of the cells in the presence of a magnetic field by using neodymium permanent magnets of 0.51 T. A diluted blood sample containing nanoparticle-conjugated CTCs was injected into the device at different flow rates to analyze its performance. It was found that the flow rate of 1000 µL/min resulted in the highest recovery rate and purity of ~95% and ~93% for CTCs, respectively.
Keywords: CTCs; cell separation; inertial; magnetophoretic; microfluidics; nanoparticle.