Apparatus and Methods for Single-Particle Isolation and Single-Particle Measurement

摘要

Particles, such as cells, are isolated for conducting single-particle measurement. Isolation of rare cells, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), from blood is technically challenging because they are small in numbers. An integrated microfluidic biochip, dubbed as CTC chip, was designed and fabricated for conducting tumor cell isolation. As CTCs are usually multidrug resistance (MDR), the effect of MDR inhibitors on chemotherapeutic drug accumulation in the isolated single tumor cell is measured. In this invention, label-free isolation of the rare tumor cells was conducted based on cell size difference. The major advantages of the CTC chip are the ability of fast cell isolation, followed by multiple rounds of single-cell measurement, suggesting a potential assay for detecting the drug responses based on the liquid biopsy of cancer patients.

主权项

1. A microfluidic device comprising:
(a) a first fluid chamber for separating target particles from non-target particles in a sample that comprises both the target particles and the non-target particles, (b) a second fluid chamber which comprises a particle retention region for retaining at least one of the target particles, and wherein the first fluid chamber is in fluid communication with the second fluid chamber.