Breast cancer is the most fatal disease among female
cancers yet its detection still relies on needle biopsy. The unique physical and immune characteristics of
breast cancer cells different from blood cells make them suitable to be employed as excellent
biomarkers in liquid biopsy, through which
breast cancer cells are collected from peripheral blood for further
cancer diagnosis, medical treatment monitoring, and drug screening. Although the separation and enrichment of
breast cancer cells from peripheral blood have been studied for years, there are still two problems to be solved in these methods: the low efficiency of on-chip immunologic capture in the flow state and the influence of the conjugated
antibodies for the following analyses during cell release. In this paper, a vein-shaped microchip with self-assembled surface was developed for the specific and robust capture (91.2%) of
breast cancer cells in the flow state. A
protein-recovery process was proposed, in which
trypsin served as a mild release
reagent, releasing 92% of cells with high viability (96%), normal adherent proliferation, and complete
proteins on the cell membrane, avoiding disturbance of the conjugated chemical molecules in the following clinical study. The excellent performance demonstrated in isolating free
breast cancer cells from real peripheral blood sample, originating from the orthotopic 4T1
breast cancer metastatic models, suggest the microchip could be utilized as a multiple
circulating tumor cell capture and release platform that could allow providing more reliable information in liquid biopsies.