Department of Bioengineering and Robotics, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01, Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan.
Biomed Microdevices. 2012 Feb;14(1):25-33. doi: 10.1007/s10544-011-9582-y.
The circulating tumor cell test is used to evaluate the condition of breast cancer patients by counting the number of cancer cells in peripheral blood samples. Although microfluidic systems to detect or separate cells using the inertial migration effect may be applied to this test, the hydrodynamic forces acting on cancer cells in high hematocrit blood flow are incompletely understood. In the present study, we investigated the inertial migration of cancer cells in high hematocrit blood flow in microchannels. The maximum hematocrit used in this study was about 40%. By measuring the cell migration probability, we examined the effects of cell-cell interactions, cell deformability, and variations in cell size on the inertial migration of cancer cells in blood. The results clearly illustrate that cancer cells can migrate towards equilibrium positions up to a hematocrit level of 10%. We also performed simple scaling analysis to explain the differences in migration length between rigid particles and cancer cells as well as the effect of hematocrit on cancer cell migration. These results will be important for the design of microfluidic devices for separating cells from blood.
循环肿瘤细胞检测通过计算外周血样中癌细胞的数量来评估乳腺癌患者的病情。虽然可以将使用惯性迁移效应来检测或分离细胞的微流控系统应用于该检测，但高血红细胞比容血流中作用于癌细胞的流体动力仍不完全清楚。在本研究中，我们研究了癌细胞在高血红细胞比容血流中的惯性迁移。本研究中使用的最大血红细胞比容约为 40%。通过测量细胞迁移概率，我们考察了细胞-细胞相互作用、细胞可变形性以及细胞大小变化对血液中癌细胞惯性迁移的影响。结果清楚地表明，癌细胞可以向平衡位置迁移，血红细胞比容高达 10%。我们还进行了简单的比例分析，以解释刚性颗粒和癌细胞之间迁移长度的差异以及血红细胞比容对癌细胞迁移的影响。这些结果对于设计用于从血液中分离细胞的微流控装置非常重要。
