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Inertial migration of cancer cells in blood flow in microchannels

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Abstract

The circulating tumor cell test is used to evaluate the condition of breast cancer patients by counting the number of cancer cells in peripheral blood samples. Although microfluidic systems to detect or separate cells using the inertial migration effect may be applied to this test, the hydrodynamic forces acting on cancer cells in high hematocrit blood flow are incompletely understood. In the present study, we investigated the inertial migration of cancer cells in high hematocrit blood flow in microchannels. The maximum hematocrit used in this study was about 40%. By measuring the cell migration probability, we examined the effects of cell–cell interactions, cell deformability, and variations in cell size on the inertial migration of cancer cells in blood. The results clearly illustrate that cancer cells can migrate towards equilibrium positions up to a hematocrit level of 10%. We also performed simple scaling analysis to explain the differences in migration length between rigid particles and cancer cells as well as the effect of hematocrit on cancer cell migration. These results will be important for the design of microfluidic devices for separating cells from blood.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) and (B) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS; No. 19100008 and No. 22300149). We also acknowledge the support from the 2007 Global COE Program “Global Nano-Biomedical Engineering Education and Research Network Centre.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioengineering and Robotics, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01, Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan

    Tatsuya Tanaka, Takuji Ishikawa, Yohsuke Imai & Takefumi Yoshimoto

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01 Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan

    Keiko Numayama-Tsuruta & Takami Yamaguchi

  3. International Advanced Research and Education Organization, Tohoku University, 6-6-01 Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Japan

    Hironori Ueno

  4. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Okayama University of Science, 1-1 Ridai-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama, 700-0005, Japan

    Noriaki Matsuki

Authors
  1. Tatsuya Tanaka
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  2. Takuji Ishikawa
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  3. Keiko Numayama-Tsuruta
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  4. Yohsuke Imai
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  5. Hironori Ueno
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  6. Takefumi Yoshimoto
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  7. Noriaki Matsuki
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  8. Takami Yamaguchi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tatsuya Tanaka.

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Tanaka, T., Ishikawa, T., Numayama-Tsuruta, K. et al. Inertial migration of cancer cells in blood flow in microchannels. Biomed Microdevices 14, 25–33 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-011-9582-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-011-9582-y

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