Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-Structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Key Laboratory of Medical Information and 3D Bioprinting of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2021 Feb 15;4(2):1140-1155. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.0c01325. Epub 2021 Jan 8.
Blood tests have been a powerful tool for the clinical analysis of many diseases. With the advances in microfluidic technology, two more specific indicators from the circulation system, namely, emerging "liquid biopsy" of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and fetal nucleated red blood cells (fNRBCs), can be screened and analyzed as a simple blood test for the noninvasive diagnosis of cancers as well as fetal disorders. The unique feature of precisely manipulating a trace of fluid endows microfluidic devices with the ability to isolate CTCs or fNRBCs from numerous blood cells with high performance, which undoubtedly facilitates biomedical applications of these two kinds of rare cells. In this review, advanced developments in microfluidic technologies focusing on the detection and sorting of rare CTCs and fNRBCs from peripheral blood are summarized. The development of microfluidic devices incorporated with various multifunctional microstructures and nanomaterials for enhancing the sensitivity, purity, and viability of CTC or fNRBC detection enables CTC molecular analysis and fNRBC-based noninvasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD). These microfluidics-based approaches provide great potential opportunities in noninvasive cancer diagnosis or NIPD applications.
血液检测一直是许多疾病临床分析的有力工具。随着微流控技术的进步，循环系统中另外两个更具体的指标，即新兴的“循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）液体活检”和胎儿有核红细胞（fNRBC），可以作为一种简单的血液检测进行筛选和分析，用于癌症以及胎儿疾病的非侵入性诊断。微流控设备精确操纵微量流体的独特功能使其能够高性能地从大量血细胞中分离 CTC 或 fNRBC，这无疑促进了这两种稀有细胞的生物医学应用。在本文综述中，总结了聚焦于从外周血中检测和分选稀有 CTC 和 fNRBC 的微流控技术的最新进展。与各种多功能微结构和纳米材料集成的微流控装置的发展，提高了 CTC 或 fNRBC 检测的灵敏度、纯度和活力，从而实现了 CTC 分子分析和基于 fNRBC 的无创产前诊断（NIPD）。这些基于微流控的方法在癌症的非侵入性诊断或 NIPD 应用中具有巨大的潜力。
