Home LiteratureArticle Details
PMID: 25984697 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

A microfluidic device for label-free, physical capture of circulating tumor cell clusters.

Nature methods ·Vol. 12 ·No. 7 ·2015-07-00 ·Pages 685-91

Sarioglu AF, Aceto N, Kojic N, Donaldson MC, Zeinali M, Hamza B, Engstrom A, Zhu H, Sundaresan TK, Miyamoto DT, Luo X, Bardia A, Wittner BS, Ramaswamy S, Shioda T, Ting DT, Stott SL, Kapur R, Maheswaran S, Haber DA, Toner M

Abstract

Cancer cells metastasize through the bloodstream either as single migratory circulating tumor cells (CTCs) or as multicellular groupings (CTC clusters). Existing technologies for CTC enrichment are designed to isolate single CTCs, and although CTC clusters are detectable in some cases, their true prevalence and significance remain to be determined. Here we developed a microchip technology (the Cluster-Chip) to capture CTC clusters independently of tumor-specific markers from unprocessed blood. CTC clusters are isolated through specialized bifurcating traps under low-shear stress conditions that preserve their integrity, and even two-cell clusters are captured efficiently. Using the Cluster-Chip, we identified CTC clusters in 30-40% of patients with metastatic breast or prostate cancer or with melanoma. RNA sequencing of CTC clusters confirmed their tumor origin and identified tissue-derived macrophages within the clusters. Efficient capture of CTC clusters will enable the detailed characterization of their biological properties and role in metastasis.

MeSH Terms
Breast Neoplasms/pathology Cell Line, Tumor Female Humans Immunohistochemistry Male Microfluidic Analytical Techniques Neoplastic Cells, Circulating Prostatic Neoplasms/pathology Sequence Analysis, RNA
Authors & Affiliations
21 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Sarioglu A Fatih
1] Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [3] Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Aceto Nicola
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Kojic Nikola
1] Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Donaldson Maria C
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Zeinali Mahnaz
1] Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Hamza Bashar
Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Engstrom Amanda
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Zhu Huili
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Sundaresan Tilak K
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Miyamoto David T
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Luo Xi
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Bardia Aditya
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Wittner Ben S ORCID
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Ramaswamy Sridhar
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Shioda Toshi
Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Ting David T
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Stott Shannon L
1] Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [3] Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Kapur Ravi
Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Maheswaran Shyamala
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Haber Daniel A
1] Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [3] Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA.
Toner Mehmet
1] Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [2] Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
References (37)
37 references, click to expand
  1. Androgen receptor signaling in circulating tumor cells as a marker of hormonally responsive prostate cancer.
    Cancer Discov. 2012 Nov;2(11):995-1003 PMID: 23093251
  2. RNA sequencing of pancreatic circulating tumour cells implicates WNT signalling in metastasis.
    Nature. 2012 Jul 26;487(7408):510-3 PMID: 22763454
  3. Isolation and retrieval of circulating tumor cells using centrifugal forces.
    Sci Rep. 2013;3:1259 PMID: 23405273
  4. Inertial focusing for tumor antigen-dependent and -independent sorting of rare circulating tumor cells.
    Sci Transl Med. 2013 Apr 3;5(179):179ra47 PMID: 23552373
  5. Filtration parameters influencing circulating tumor cell enrichment from whole blood.
    PLoS One. 2013;8(4):e61774 PMID: 23658615
  6. Ki-67 is a prognostic parameter in breast cancer patients: results of a large population-based cohort of a cancer registry.
    Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2013 Jun;139(2):539-52 PMID: 23674192
  7. Isolation by size of epithelial tumor cells : a new method for the immunomorphological and molecular characterization of circulatingtumor cells.
    Am J Pathol. 2000 Jan;156(1):57-63 PMID: 10623654
  8. TIMP-1 increases expression and phosphorylation of proteins associated with drug resistance in breast cancer cells.
    J Proteome Res. 2013 Sep 6;12(9):4136-51 PMID: 23909892
  9. Sensitive capture of circulating tumour cells by functionalized graphene oxide nanosheets.
    Nat Nanotechnol. 2013 Oct;8(10):735-41 PMID: 24077027
  10. Isolation and molecular characterization of circulating melanoma cells.
    Cell Rep. 2014 May 8;7(3):645-53 PMID: 24746818
  11. The effect of cold on platelets. I. Cold-induced platelet aggregation.
    Blood. 1971 Jul;38(1):39-48 PMID: 4254206
  12. Circulating tumor cell clusters in the peripheral blood of colorectal cancer patients.
    Clin Cancer Res. 2001 Dec;7(12):4080-5 PMID: 11751505
  13. Circulating tumor cell clusters are oligoclonal precursors of breast cancer metastasis.
    Cell. 2014 Aug 28;158(5):1110-22 PMID: 25171411
  14. The relationship of embolic homogeneity, number, size and viability to the incidence of experimental metastasis.
    Eur J Cancer. 1973 Mar;9(3):223-7 PMID: 4787857
  15. Isolation of prostate-derived single cells and cell clusters from human peripheral blood.
    Cancer Res. 1996 Oct 15;56(20):4556-61 PMID: 8840959
  16. The metastasizability of tumor cells.
    Cancer. 1954 Mar;7(2):215-23 PMID: 13141212
  17. Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 in breast cancer.
    Endocr Relat Cancer. 2005 Jun;12(2):215-27 PMID: 15947098
  18. Direct visualization of macrophage-assisted tumor cell intravasation in mammary tumors.
    Cancer Res. 2007 Mar 15;67(6):2649-56 PMID: 17363585
  19. Isolation of rare circulating tumour cells in cancer patients by microchip technology.
    Nature. 2007 Dec 20;450(7173):1235-9 PMID: 18097410
  20. Detection, clinical relevance and specific biological properties of disseminating tumour cells.
    Nat Rev Cancer. 2008 May;8(5):329-40 PMID: 18404148
  21. TIMP-1 as a tumor marker in breast cancer--an update.
    Acta Oncol. 2008;47(4):580-90 PMID: 18465326
  22. Isolating highly enriched populations of circulating epithelial cells and other rare cells from blood using a magnetic sweeper device.
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Mar 10;106(10):3970-5 PMID: 19234122
  23. A developmentally regulated inducer of EMT, LBX1, contributes to breast cancer progression.
    Genes Dev. 2009 Aug 1;23(15):1737-42 PMID: 19651985
  24. Macrophage diversity enhances tumor progression and metastasis.
    Cell. 2010 Apr 2;141(1):39-51 PMID: 20371344
  25. Temperature modulation of integrin-mediated cell adhesion.
    Biophys J. 2010 Sep 8;99(5):1387-96 PMID: 20816050
  26. Isolation of circulating tumor cells using a microvortex-generating herringbone-chip.
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Oct 26;107(43):18392-7 PMID: 20930119
  27. A 3-D model of ligand transport in a deforming extracellular space.
    Biophys J. 2010 Dec 1;99(11):3517-25 PMID: 21112275
  28. Circulating tumor cells: approaches to isolation and characterization.
    J Cell Biol. 2011 Feb 7;192(3):373-82 PMID: 21300848
  29. Malignant cells facilitate lung metastasis by bringing their own soil.
    Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Dec 14;107(50):21677-82 PMID: 21098274
  30. Direct signaling between platelets and cancer cells induces an epithelial-mesenchymal-like transition and promotes metastasis.
    Cancer Cell. 2011 Nov 15;20(5):576-90 PMID: 22094253
  31. Analysis of circulating tumor cells in patients with non-small cell lung cancer using epithelial marker-dependent and -independent approaches.
    J Thorac Oncol. 2012 Feb;7(2):306-15 PMID: 22173704
  32. Characterization of circulating tumor cell aggregates identified in patients with epithelial tumors.
    Phys Biol. 2012 Feb;9(1):016001 PMID: 22306705
  33. Clinical significance and molecular characteristics of circulating tumor cells and circulating tumor microemboli in patients with small-cell lung cancer.
    J Clin Oncol. 2012 Feb 10;30(5):525-32 PMID: 22253462
  34. The blockade of immune checkpoints in cancer immunotherapy.
    Nat Rev Cancer. 2012 Apr;12(4):252-64 PMID: 22437870
  35. Biopolymer system for cell recovery from microfluidic cell capture devices.
    Anal Chem. 2012 Apr 17;84(8):3682-8 PMID: 22414137
  36. Tumor tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) in hormone-independent breast cancer might originate in stromal cells, and improves stratification of prognosis together with nodal status.
    Exp Cell Res. 2012 Jun 10;318(10):1094-103 PMID: 22465225
  37. Circulating breast tumor cells exhibit dynamic changes in epithelial and mesenchymal composition.
    Science. 2013 Feb 1;339(6119):580-4 PMID: 23372014
Article Info
Journal
Nature methods
Abbr.
Nat Methods
ISSN
1548-7105
Published
2015-07-00
Epub
2015-00-18
Pages
685-91
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
101215604
PMCID
PMC4490017
Subset
IM
Grants
NIBIB NIH HHS · U01 EB012493 · United States
NIBIB NIH HHS · R01 EB008047 · United States
Howard Hughes Medical Institute · United States
NCI NIH HHS · K12 CA087723 · United States
NIBIB NIH HHS · P41 EB002503 · United States
Databases
GEO
Analysis Services
Analysis Services

Contact

No. 2 Wenbo Road, Zhangqiu District, Jinan, Shandong

Qilu Normal University · Genelibs Bioinformatics Lab

750 Shunhua Rd, Jinan

2F, Bldg F, University Science Park

Tel: 0531-88819269

WeChat Official Account

Follow our WeChat subscription account for real-time updates and the latest in medical and biological research.


Business Email

E-mail: [email protected]