Issue 9, 2020

In-flow measurement of cell–cell adhesion using oscillatory inertial microfluidics

Abstract

Multicellular clusters in circulation can exhibit a substantially different function and biomarker significance compared to individual cells. Notably, clusters of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are much more effective initiators of metastasis than single CTCs, and correlate with worse patient prognoses. Measuring the cell–cell adhesion strength of CTC clusters is a critical step towards understanding their subsistence in the circulation and mechanism of elevated tumorigenicity. However, measuring cell–cell adhesion forces in flow is elusive using existing methods. Here, we report an oscillatory inertial microfluidics system which exerts a repeating fluidic force profile on suspended cell doublets to determine their cell–cell adhesion strength (Fs), without any biophysical modifications to the cell surface and physiological morphology. Using our system, we analyzed a large number (N > 500) of doublets from a patient-derived breast cancer CTC line. We discovered that the cell–cell adhesion strength of CTC doublets varied almost 20-fold between the weakly adhered (Fs < 28 nN) and strongly bound subpopulations (Fs > 542 nN). Our system can be used with other cancer or noncancer cells without restrictions, and may be used for rapid screening of drugs aiming to disrupt the highly-metastatic CTC clusters in circulation.

Graphical abstract: In-flow measurement of cell–cell adhesion using oscillatory inertial microfluidics

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Jan 2020
Accepted
06 Apr 2020
First published
09 Apr 2020

Lab Chip, 2020,20, 1612-1620

In-flow measurement of cell–cell adhesion using oscillatory inertial microfluidics

B. R. Mutlu, T. Dubash, C. Dietsche, A. Mishra, A. Ozbey, K. Keim, J. F. Edd, D. A. Haber, S. Maheswaran and M. Toner, Lab Chip, 2020, 20, 1612 DOI: 10.1039/D0LC00089B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements