Selective collection and detection of leukemia cells on a magnet-quartz crystal microbalance system using aptamer-conjugated magnetic beads.

A novel method for selective collection and detection of human acute leukemia cells has been proposed using aptamer-conjugated magnetic beads (apt-MBs) and a magnet-quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) system. The sgc8c aptamer-conjugated MBs specifically binding to CCRF-CEM cells were used for target cell extraction from complex matrixes, and the magnet-QCM system was successfully applied for quantitative cell detection, requiring no further labeling of cells. The accumulation of MBs-conjugated CCRF-CEM cells on a quartz crystal gold electrode surface under a magnetic field resulted in decreased resonant frequency. A linear relationship between the frequency shift and cell concentration over the range of 1 x 10(4)-1.5 x 10(5)cells mL(-1) was obtained, with a detection limit of 8 x 10(3)cells mL(-1). The applicability of the method for target cell detection from cell mixture was satisfactory.