Microfluidic devices for the isolation of circulating rare cells: a focus on affinity-based, dielectrophoresis and hydrophoresis - Hyun - ELECTROPHORESIS - Wiley Online Library
Wow, its review season, quite a number of reviews already in 2013
Focus of review: Microfluidic- affinity-based (antibody-antigen), dielectrophoresis and Hydrophoresis- (aka inertial microfluidics)
some perspectives expressed by the authors
"Several isolation methodologies based on affinity-based positive enrichment using epitopes
expressed on the cell surface have been developed. However, all circulating rare cells do not express the same specific antigens, as they are heterogeneous by nature. Although it is controversial whether positive or negative enrichment is more efficient, it is clear that the latter is more advantageous than the former because the target cells can be captured in intact form. Novel approaches for negative enrichment (affinity-based methods using antibodies to isolate hematologic cells or non-affinity-based methods such as dielectrophoresis and hydrophoresis) should be developed, because a negative enrichment microfluidic chip enables the simultaneous isolation of various types of circulating rare cells, such as circulating endothelial cells (CECs), cancer stem cells (CSCs), circulating progenitor cells (CPCs), and circulating tumor cells (CTCs), including nucleated red blood cells (nRBCs). The number of intact and heterogeneous circulating rare cells collected continuously by such a device will provide researchers with many opportunities to investigate the molecular nature of these rare cells."
Wow, its review season, quite a number of reviews already in 2013
Focus of review: Microfluidic- affinity-based (antibody-antigen), dielectrophoresis and Hydrophoresis- (aka inertial microfluidics)
some perspectives expressed by the authors
"Several isolation methodologies based on affinity-based positive enrichment using epitopes
expressed on the cell surface have been developed. However, all circulating rare cells do not express the same specific antigens, as they are heterogeneous by nature. Although it is controversial whether positive or negative enrichment is more efficient, it is clear that the latter is more advantageous than the former because the target cells can be captured in intact form. Novel approaches for negative enrichment (affinity-based methods using antibodies to isolate hematologic cells or non-affinity-based methods such as dielectrophoresis and hydrophoresis) should be developed, because a negative enrichment microfluidic chip enables the simultaneous isolation of various types of circulating rare cells, such as circulating endothelial cells (CECs), cancer stem cells (CSCs), circulating progenitor cells (CPCs), and circulating tumor cells (CTCs), including nucleated red blood cells (nRBCs). The number of intact and heterogeneous circulating rare cells collected continuously by such a device will provide researchers with many opportunities to investigate the molecular nature of these rare cells."
