Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells

Thesis (Ph. D. in Medical Engineering)--Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, 2012.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Shah, Ajay M. (Ajay Mukesh)
Other Authors: Mehmet Toner.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72916
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author Shah, Ajay M. (Ajay Mukesh)
author2 Mehmet Toner.
author_facet Mehmet Toner.
Shah, Ajay M. (Ajay Mukesh)
author_sort Shah, Ajay M. (Ajay Mukesh)
collection MIT
description Thesis (Ph. D. in Medical Engineering)--Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, 2012.
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spelling mit-1721.1/729162019-04-10T17:07:33Z Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells Shah, Ajay M. (Ajay Mukesh) Mehmet Toner. Harvard--MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Harvard--MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Harvard--MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Thesis (Ph. D. in Medical Engineering)--Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, 2012. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-129). Metastasis, the spread and growth of tumor cells from the primary site to distant organs, is arguably the most devastating and deadly attribute of cancer, and is ultimately responsible for 90% of cancer-related deaths. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are exceedingly rare cells found in the whole blood of cancer patients which have the potential to serve as a 'blood biopsy'. The intricate characterization of these cells could result in an entire new class of therapies directly targeting metastasis. Present technologies enable only a susbset of potential analyses to be conducted, principally due to sub-optimal cell isolation sensitivity, purity, throughput, or handling method. Here, we present two novel technologies to address the challenge of CTC isolation. First, we build on affinity-based microfluidic cell capture platforms by developing sacrificial hydrogel coatings to enable the innocuous release of captured cells; we demonstrate that model CTCs captured from whole blood remain viable and proliferative following release and are compatible with downstream immunostaining and FISH analysis. Second, we present a novel cell sorting system that interrogates over 10 million individual events each second, resulting in a high throughput, ultra-efficient rare cell sorter that delivers enriched cells in a vial, readily compatible with virtually any downstream assay. This is the first system combining the high sensitivity and single cell resolution that is characteristic of FACS with the practicality of MACS at a throughput and specificity afforded by inertial focusing, enabling operation in both 'positive selection' and 'negative depletion' modes. We find greater than 90% cell isolation efficiencies with over 2.5 log depletion of contaminating WBCs. Furthermore, the system is applied to clinical patient samples, and proof-of-concept is demonstrated in a cohort of breast, lung and prostate patients. Working in a negative depletion mode to isolate target cells in an unbiased fashion, we used the system to assess single putative CTCs isolated from an endogenous pancreatic mouse model for gene expression of tumor markers. Initial data confirms CTC heterogeneity at the single cell level, and positions us to move forward with single cell transcriptome sequencing, which may reveal a broad array of CTC phenotypes including metastatic precursors. by Ajay Mukesh Shah. Ph.D.in Medical Engineering 2012-09-13T19:02:04Z 2012-09-13T19:02:04Z 2012 2012 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72916 809089297 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 129 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Harvard--MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.
Shah, Ajay M. (Ajay Mukesh)
Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
title Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
title_full Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
title_fullStr Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
title_full_unstemmed Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
title_short Technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
title_sort technologies for the isolation of circulating tumor cells
topic Harvard--MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/72916
work_keys_str_mv AT shahajaymajaymukesh technologiesfortheisolationofcirculatingtumorcells