Homoporous polydimethylsiloxane membrane microfilter for ultrafast label-free isolation and recognition of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood

Peng Xie; Xiaoyue Yao; Zhenyu Chu; Yang Yang; Haifeng Li; Siyuan Tan; Haodong Tang; Jiahua Zhou; Wanqin Jin

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.108246

Homoporous polydimethylsiloxane membrane microfilter for ultrafast label-free isolation and recognition of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood

iScience. 2023 Oct 18;26(11):108246. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108246. eCollection 2023 Nov 17.

Authors

Peng Xie¹, Xiaoyue Yao², Zhenyu Chu², Yang Yang³, Haifeng Li¹, Siyuan Tan¹, Haodong Tang¹, Jiahua Zhou³, Wanqin Jin²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery, Zhongda Hospital, School of Medicine, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210009, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, P.R. China.
³ Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery, Zhongda Hospital Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210009, China.

Abstract

The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in peripheral blood is a novel and accurate technique for the early diagnosis of cancers. However, this method is challenging because of the need for high collection efficiency due to the ultralow content and similar size of CTCs compared with other blood cells. To address the aforementioned issue, we proposed a homoporous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane and its microfilter device to perform the ultrafast isolation and identification of CTCs directly from peripheral blood without any labeling treatment. The membrane pores can be homogenously controlled at a size of 6.3 μm through the cross-linking time of PDMS during a filtration-coating strategy. Within only 10 s, the designed device achieved a retention rate greater than 70% for pancreatic cancer cells, and it exhibited excellent cell compatibility to support cell proliferation. The isolated CTCs on this membrane can be easily observed and identified using a fluorescence microscope.

Keywords: Health technology; Materials science.