Abstract
Tumour cell migration has an important impact on tumour metastasis. Magnetic manipulation is an ascendant method for guiding and patterning cells. Here, a unique miniaturized microfluidic chip integrating cell isolation and migration assay was designed to isolate and investigate cell migration. The chip was fabricated and composed of a magnet adapter, a polytetrafluoroethylene(PDMS) microfluidic chip and six magnetic rings. This device was used to isolate MCF-7 cells from MDA-MB-231-RFP cells and evaluate the effects of TGF-β on MCF-7 cells. First, the two cell types were mixed and incubated with magnetic beads modified with an anti-EpCAM antibody. Then, they were slowly introduced into the chip. MCF-7 cells bond to the magnetic beads in a ring-shaped pattern, while MDA-MB-231-RFP cells were washed away by PBS. Cell viability was examined during culturing in the micro-channel. The effects of TGF-β on MCF-7 cells were evaluated by migration distance and protein expression. The integrated method presented here is novel, low-cost and easy for performing cell isolation and migration assay. The method could be beneficial for developing microfluidic device applications for cancer metastasis research and could provide a new method for biological experimentation.
Highlights
Tumour cell migration has an important impact on tumour metastasis
Recent studies have shown that the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is important for the invasion and metastasis of breast cancer cells[12]
A mixture of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231-RFP cells was incubated with magnetic beads modified with an anti-EpCAM antibody
Summary
Tumour cell migration has an important impact on tumour metastasis. Magnetic manipulation is an ascendant method for guiding and patterning cells. There are many novel methods for isolating cells using microfluidic chip including magnetic-based cell sorting[7], surface acoustic waves[8], dielectrophoresis[9], hydrodynamic force[10], and filtration[11]. The method presented here can capture cell subtypes with specific protein expression with antibody-modified magnetic beads and investigate the migration behaviours of this subtype of cells. This study describes an integrated chip that combines cell isolation and a migration assay In this assay, we use a magnetic-based method to isolate two cell subtypes which express different membrane proteins on a chip, and performed a cell migration assay on the chip. A mixture of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231-RFP cells was incubated with magnetic beads modified with an anti-EpCAM antibody. The integrated cell isolation and migration chip presented here can be readily applicable to investigate cell subtype migration abilities in a mixture of complicated tumour cells
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