Enhancement of Capturing Efficacy for Circulating Tumor Cells by Centrifugation

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are thought to be the main candidate for metastasis, are gaining importance owing to their potential impact on human health and public welfare. For capturing CTCs, antigen-antibody interaction has been used in which specific antigens expressed on cell surface of CTCs can be bound to antibodies immobilized on substrates. Conventional detection methods for CTCs have often suffered not only from relatively low antigen-antibody coupling efficiency but also from cumbersome fabrication processes of micro/nano-structures for CTCs capture. Herein, we report a facile, robust antibody-based CTCs detection technique using centrifugal force, which can enhance the capturing efficacy of CTCs. We validate chemical functionalization process of antibodies on a silica substrate by using atomic force microscopy. Furthermore, it turned out that the centrifugal force from a benchtop centrifuge is enough to produce a ~2.3-fold increase in capture yield of CTCs through enhancement of binding avidity between CTCs and the antibodies. Our result points out the great potential of our method for practical application in CTCs diagnostics and opens a new avenue for biological and chemical sensing.