Microfluidic
Device to
Capture Tumor-Specific Extracellular Vesicles
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a
Microfluidic Device to
Capture tumor-derived
Extracellular Vesicles from patient blood samples. The
Device paves the way for minimally invasive characterization and monitoring of difficult-to-treat cancers, such as glioblastoma.
Assessing biomarkers present in the blood is a promising way to characterize and keep track of tumors, but some tumors are difficult to analyze this way. Glioblastoma is one such tumor. The tumor’s location in the brain means that some biomarkers, such as circulating tumor cells, may not cross the blood-brain barrier consistently.
“Due to the tumor’s location, it has been challenging to get dynamic, real-time molecular information, which limits the ability to determine tumor progression and to match patients with the most promising new therapies,†said Shannon Stott, a researcher involved in this study.
The research team previously reported that tumor-derived
Extracellular vesicles, which are small lipid particles that carry molecules through the blood, may provide a suitable biomarker in characterizing glioblastomas.
Extracellular
Vesicles (red) released from a patient’s tumor and captured on the surfaces of the EVHB-Chip. (Shannon Stott, PhD, Center for Engineering in Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital)
In this recent study, the team developed a
Microfluidic Device that can
Capture glioblastoma-derived
Extracellular vesicles, with high specificity, using very small blood samples, which would be useful for pediatric patients. The
Microfluidic channels in the
Device contain a cocktail of antibodies that are specific for molecules found on glioblastoma-derived
Extracellular vesicles, meaning the
Vesicles are captured as they pass through the channels.
The team optimized the
Device to
Capture up to 100
Tumor-Specific Vesicles in just one microliter of human plasma. The
Vesicles can then be released from the
Device for molecular characterization. In human tests, the researchers were able to isolate glioblastoma-specific
Vesicles from all of the glioblastoma patients they assessed.
“Our device’s ability to sort
Tumor-Specific Extracellular Vesicles out from the billions of
Extracellular Vesicles carried through the bloodstream may lead to the development of much-needed diagnostic and monitoring tools for this and other hard-to-treat cancers,†said Stott. “We are excited by this early-stage data, and we look forward to scaling the technology and increasing the number of patient samples analyzed. Specifically, we are interested in exploring how these
Vesicles change over time in response to treatment, and we see our blood-based assay as an ideal way to explore this in brain tumor patients.â€
Study in
Nature Communications:
Engineered nanointerfaces for microfluidic isolation and molecular profiling of tumor-specific extracellular vesicles…
Via:
MGH…
