Sun Duanping, Chen Zuanguang, Wu Minhao, Zhang Yuanqing
Institute of Medical Instrument and Application, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510006, P. R. China.
Department of Immunology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, P. R. China.
Nanotheranostics. 2017 Aug 20;1(4):389-402. doi: 10.7150/ntno.21268. eCollection 2017.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), a type of cancer cells that spreads from primary or metastatic tumors into the bloodstream, can lead to a new fatal metastasis. As a new type of liquid biopsy, CTCs have become a hot pursuit and detection of CTCs offers the possibility for early diagnosis of cancers, earlier evaluation of chemotherapeutic efficacy and cancer recurrence, and choice of individual sensitive anti-cancer drugs. The fundamental challenges of capturing and characterizing CTCs are the extremely low number of CTCs in the blood and the intrinsic heterogeneity of CTCs. A series of microfluidic devices have been proposed for the analysis of CTCs with automation capability, precise flow behaviors, and significant advantages over the conventional larger scale systems. This review aims to provide in-depth insights into CTCs analysis, including various nanomaterial-based microfluidic chips for the capture and detection of CTCs based on the specific biochemical and physical properties of CTCs. The current developmental trends and promising research directions in the establishment of microfluidic chips for the capture and detection of CTCs are also discussed.
循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs）是一种从原发性或转移性肿瘤扩散到血液中的癌细胞，可导致新的致命转移。作为一种新型的液体活检，循环肿瘤细胞已成为热门研究对象，对其进行检测为癌症的早期诊断、化疗疗效及癌症复发的早期评估以及个体敏感抗癌药物的选择提供了可能。捕获和鉴定循环肿瘤细胞面临的根本挑战在于血液中循环肿瘤细胞数量极少以及循环肿瘤细胞本身具有异质性。人们已经提出了一系列微流控装置用于分析循环肿瘤细胞，这些装置具有自动化能力、精确的流动特性，相较于传统的大规模系统具有显著优势。本综述旨在深入探讨循环肿瘤细胞分析，包括基于各种纳米材料的微流控芯片，这些芯片可根据循环肿瘤细胞的特定生化和物理特性对其进行捕获和检测。同时还讨论了用于捕获和检测循环肿瘤细胞的微流控芯片建立方面的当前发展趋势和有前景的研究方向。
