Modular Chamber Assembled with Cell-Replicated Surface for Capture of Cancer Cells

The capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is mainly carried out with a small volume of blood using magnetic nanoparticles and complex microfluidics. In this study, we propose a CTC-capture apparatus based on a modular design and called this apparatus as the CTC chamber. Distinct from other CTC-capture apparatuses, the capacity of the CTC chamber could be altered by varying the number of CTC-capture modules to accommodate the different volumes of blood sample. The core component of the CTC-capture module was a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film with cell-replicated topological structure and anti-EpCAM antibody coating. Both synergistic roles can enhance the capture yield of cancer cells. Furthermore, the CTC chamber was assembled with one or three CTC-capture modules for the capture of cancer cells from spiked blood samples representing late-stage (3 mL of blood, 10 cancer cells mL–1) or middle-early stage (9 mL of blood, 1 cancer cell mL–1) cancer. The results showed that high capture yield (EpCAM-posit...