Versatile Dynamic Bioactive Lubricant-Infused Surface for Effective Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells

The rarity of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and the complexity of blood components present major challenges for the efficient isolation of CTCs in blood. The coexisting matters could interfere with the detection of CTCs by adhering to the binding sites on the material surface, leading to the reduced accuracy of biomarker capture in blood. Herein, we developed dynamic bioactive lubricant-infused slippery surfaces by grafting the 1H,1H,2H,2H-heptadecafluorodecyl acrylate polymer and 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid polymer brushes on quartz plates by UV light-initiated and then grafted cancer cell-binding peptides via reversible catechol-boronate chemistry between phenylboronic acid groups and 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine groups of peptides for high-efficient capture of CTCs and nondestructive release of the desired cells in sugar response. Patterned dynamic bioactive lubricant-infused surfaces (PDBLISs) further exhibited the improved capture efficiency of CTCs and more effective antifouling properties for nonspecific cells and blood components. Moreover, the PDBLIS can efficiently capture rare cancer cells from the mimic of cancer patient's blood samples. We anticipate that the strategy we proposed would be used in further clinical diagnosis of complicated biofluids related to a variety of tumors and exhibit good prospects and potential in future liquid biopsies.