METHOD FOR ENRICHING RARE CELL POPULATION

摘要

A method for enriching a whole blood sample for rare cells is disclosed. A blood sample (12) is layered onto Ficoll/Hypaque-1119 (14) and centrifuged to remove maternal erythrocytes (16) and the rest of centrifuged blood sample is passed through a gravity-biased, counterflow stabilized charge-flow separator apparatus (20) to separate out fetal nucleated erythrocytes (26) from other cellular components in the presence of an applied electrical field. Separated fetal nucleated erythrocytes (26) undergo ammonia hemolysis (30) to eliminate mature erythrocytes and enriched fetal nucleated erythrocytes are recovered.