International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, Braga, Portugal.
Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores - Microsistemas e Nanotecnologias, INESC-MN, Lisbon, Portugal.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2022;1379:413-444. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-04039-9_17.
Flow cytometers are well-established tools with fundamental importance in biology and medicine to examine and identify cell populations, density, size distributions, compositions, and disease diagnosis and monitoring. Still, these devices are expensive with a low level of integration for sample preparation. Miniaturized microfluidic cytometers, i.e., microcytometers, for monitoring cells in a wide range of biological samples are currently being developed, providing more affordable and integrated solutions. Several detection methods have been developed and applied in microcytometers such as electrical, optical, and magnetic sensing techniques, which are integrated with microfluidic technology. Magnetic microcytometers present several advantages when compared to optical systems such as the fact that these devices provide more stable labeling by using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) or beads (MBs) instead of fluorophores. In this chapter, we explore the evolution of the automation of whole cell detection and enumeration that led to the development of microcytometers and particularly examine the anatomy of magnetic microcytometers applied to cancer research. We then give an overview of the challenges of Circulating Tumor Cells enrichment and enumeration, and the progress of magnetic microcytometers in this field.
流式细胞仪是生物学和医学中用于检查和识别细胞群体、密度、大小分布、组成以及疾病诊断和监测的重要工具。然而，这些设备价格昂贵，且样品制备的集成度低。目前正在开发用于监测各种生物样品中细胞的微型化微流控细胞仪，即微细胞仪，为用户提供更经济实惠且集成化的解决方案。已经开发并应用于微细胞仪的几种检测方法，例如电、光和磁传感技术，这些方法与微流控技术相结合。与光学系统相比，磁微细胞仪具有几个优势，例如这些设备通过使用磁性纳米颗粒 (MNPs) 或磁珠 (MBs) 而不是荧光染料提供更稳定的标记。在本章中，我们探讨了导致微细胞仪发展的整个细胞检测和计数自动化的演变，并特别研究了应用于癌症研究的磁微细胞仪的解剖结构。然后，我们概述了循环肿瘤细胞富集和计数的挑战，以及磁微细胞仪在该领域的进展。
