Micro-fluidic chip for high-throughput magnetic separation of circulating tumor cells

Abstract

The invention discloses a micro-fluidic chip for high-throughput magnetic separation of circulating tumor cells. The micro-fluidic chip comprises a sample feeding part, a micro-fluidic separation areaand a sample discharging part, wherein the micro-fluidic separation area is of a closed cavity type structure, and the sample feeding part and the sample discharging part are connected with the two ends of the micro-fluidic separation area respectively; the sample feeding part comprises a blood sample feeding port and a buffer solution inlet; the sample discharging part comprises a magnetic beadcell collecting opening and a non-magnetic bead cell collecting opening; the micro-fluidic separation area comprises three structural areas, namely a purification structural area, a cell focusing structural area and a magnetic bead separation structural area. The micro-fluidic chip is high in background cell clearance rate, high in tumor cell capture rate, high in tumor cell survival rate and capable of achieving high-throughput capture.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to a microfluidic chip, in particular to a microfluidic chip for high-throughput magnetic separation of circulating tumor cells and a microfluidic chip system composed of the microfluidic chip. Background technique [0002] Tumor is a major disease that endangers human health in today's society. At present, the most effective way to treat tumors is surgical resection. However, even after surgical resection, patients still have a certain probability of tumor recurrence and metastasis. One of the reasons for the poor prognosis is cancer. Cells can easily enter and travel through the blood. Such free tumor cells may already be present in the blood of these patients prior to surgical resection. [0003] In 1896, Australian scholar Ashworth found cells similar to tumor cells in the peripheral blood of a patient who died of cancer, and thus proposed the concept of circulating tumor cells (CTC). CTC refers to some cancer cells that bre...

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Problems solved by technology

However, the inventor also found that there are many problems in the sorting equipment and method during the experimental research.

First of all, the main function of the microfluidic chip is to remove background cells. The samples that pass through the microfluidic chip still need to rely on the existing commercial magnetic sorting equipment for CTC sorting, which makes the whole system too large in volume. The cost is high, and the transfer pipeline is cumbersome; secondly, the structure of the existing mature magnetic bead cell sorting equipment is mostly a magnetic column-like structure. During the sorting process, some cells will remain in the magnetic column, resulting in the loss of CTCs; finally, although the average clearance rates of the microfluidic chip for white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets are: 99.3±1.6%, 99.6±0.8%, 99.9% ±1.2%, but the remaining background cells are still too large relative to the number of CTCs, and the extraction purity still needs to be improved

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