Label-free isolation of prostate circulating tumor cells using Vortex microfluidic technology

Abstract

Prostate cancer: a “liquid biopsy” test for circulating tumor cells A microfluidic device can rapidly and efficiently isolate circulating tumor cells from the blood of prostate cancer patients. Elodie Sollier-Christen of Vortex Biosciences, Rajan Kulkarni of David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Dino Di Carlo of UCLA and colleagues tested the company’s microfluidic technology on blood samples taken from 21 men with advanced prostate cancer and 10 healthy controls. They showed that, within an hour, the Vortex Chip could isolate circulating tumor cells in 80% of the cancer patients and that many of these cells did not display the usual surface markers that other approaches require to capture prostate cancer cells. The purities and DNA yields of the isolated cells were high enough to enable targeted genome sequencing, which revealed mutations potentially involved in tumor formation. The Vortex technology could help diagnose prostate cancer and inform therapeutic decision-making for those with the disease.