Rapid and label-free isolation of tumour cells from the urine of patients with localised prostate cancer using inertial microfluidics

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. During the last decade, isolation of circulating tumour cells via blood liquid biopsy of prostate cancer (PCa) has attracted significant attention as an alternative, or substitute, to conventional diagnostic tests. However, it was previously determined that localised forms of PCa shed a small number of cancer cells into the bloodstream, and a large volume of blood is required just for a single test, which is impractical. To address this issue, urine has been used as an alternative to blood for liquid biopsy as a truly non-invasive, patient-friendly test. To this end, we developed a spiral microfluidic chip capable of isolating PCa cells from the urine of PCa patients. Potential clinical utility of the chip was demonstrated using anti-Glypican-1 (GPC-1) antibody as a model of the primary antibody in immunofluorescent assay for identification and detection of the collected tumour cells. The microchannel device was first evaluated using DU-145 cells in a diluted Dulbecco’s phosphate-buffered saline sample, where it demonstrated >85 (±6) % efficiency. The microchannel proved to be functional in at least 79% of cases for capturing GPC1+ putative tumour cells from the urine of patients with localised PCa. More importantly, a correlation was found between the amount of the captured GPC1+ cells and crucial diagnostic and prognostic parameter of localised PCa—Gleason score. Thus, the technique demonstrated promise for further assessment of its diagnostic value in PCa detection, diagnosis, and prognosis