Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Int J Nanomedicine. 2012;7:2967-73. doi: 10.2147/IJN.S32240. Epub 2012 Jun 18.
This study presents a rapid and sensitive method for detecting cancer cells occurring at low concentration. The method involves the simultaneous detection of two biomarkers of T helper cancer cells. One biomarker conjugates with immunofunctionalized magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), enabling the separation of the T helper cells from a mixed population of cells. The other biomarker is used for detection during enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis. The specific T helper cells can be quantified according to their ELISA absorbance values following magnetic separation. The experimental results demonstrate that immunofunctionalized MNPs can function as magnetic sensors and separate specific T helper cells from a mixed population with high efficiency and high specificity. Coupled with the ELISA technique, the immunofunctionalized MNPs can simultaneously detect rare cells. Results indicated increasing absorbance with increasing T cell number (from 10 to 10(6)). The total detection time was less than 15 minutes, even at a low T cell count. The advantages of the proposed method for detecting specific cells at low concentration include ease of preparation, low cost, rapid detection, and high sensitivity. The proposed system can be adopted to detect circulating tumor cells in early tumor stages for diagnostic or prognostic purposes.
本研究提出了一种快速、灵敏的检测低浓度癌细胞的方法。该方法涉及同时检测两种 T 辅助癌细胞的生物标志物。一种生物标志物与免疫功能化的磁性纳米粒子（MNPs）结合，使 T 辅助细胞从混合细胞群中分离出来。另一种生物标志物用于酶联免疫吸附测定（ELISA）分析中的检测。根据磁分离后 ELISA 吸光度值，可定量测定特定的 T 辅助细胞。实验结果表明，免疫功能化的 MNPs 可以作为磁性传感器，高效、高特异性地从混合细胞群中分离出特定的 T 辅助细胞。与 ELISA 技术结合，免疫功能化的 MNPs 可以同时检测稀有细胞。结果表明，随着 T 细胞数量（从 10 到 10(6)）的增加，吸光度值增加。即使在 T 细胞数量较低的情况下，总检测时间也少于 15 分钟。该方法在低浓度下检测特定细胞的优点包括制备简单、成本低、检测速度快、灵敏度高。该系统可用于检测早期肿瘤阶段的循环肿瘤细胞，用于诊断或预后目的。
