Development of a microfluidic-based optical sensing device for label-free detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) through their lactic acid metabolism

Tzu Keng Chiu, Kin Fong Lei, Chia Hsun Hsieh, Hung Bo Hsiao, Hung Ming Wang, Min Hsien Wu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study reports a microfluidic-based optical sensing device for label-free detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), a rare cell species in blood circulation. Based on the metabolic features of cancer cells, live CTCs can be quantified indirectly through their lactic acid production. Compared with the conventional schemes for CTC detection, this label-free approach could prevent the biological bias due to the heterogeneity of the surface antigens on cancer cells. In this study, a microfluidic device was proposed to generate uniform water-in-oil cell-encapsulating micro-droplets, followed by the fluorescence-based optical detection of lactic acid produced within the micro-droplets. To test its feasibility to quantify cancer cells, experiments were carried out. Results showed that the detection signals were proportional to the number of cancer cells within the micro-droplets, whereas such signals were insensitive to the existence and number of leukocytes within. To further demonstrate its feasibility for cancer cell detection, the cancer cells with known cell number in a cell suspension was detected based on the method. Results revealed that there was no significant difference between the detected number and the real number of cancer cells. As a whole, the proposed method opens up a new route to detect live CTCs in a label-free manner.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6789-6806
Number of pages18
JournalSensors
Volume15
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 19 03 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Cancer cells
  • Circulating tumor cells (CTCs)
  • Lactic acid
  • Microfluidic technology
  • Optical sensing

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