Microfluidic meshed microwells enable label-free isolation of circulating tumor cell clusters

“a Schematic illustration of the Cluster-Wells’ working principle. While single cells pass unimpeded, the Cluster-Wells captures CTC clusters owing to their multicellular morphology from blood samples of cancer patients, independent of cancer type and their molecular character. b A photo of the Cluster-Wells manufactured in the form of a 47 mm-diameter membrane to be used in commercial filter holder. Close-up image (inset) shows individual wells designed to capture CTC clusters. (Right) Scanning electron micrograph of a blood-spiked LNCaP cluster as captured by one of the wells on the device (see “Methods”: SEM sample preparation and imaging). Scale bar, 20 μm. c Schematic illustration of the fabrication process developed to mold polymer Cluster-Wells device. Steps shown in the figure exclude the fabrication process for the silicon mold and the construction of reusable PDMS mold, which can be found in Supplementary Figs. 2 and 3. Scanning electron micrographs of the PDMS structure employed for micromolding (lower right) and the finished device fabricated out of photocurable polymer, MD700 (lower left). Scale bars, 50 μm.” Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License from Boya, M., Ozkaya-Ahmadov, T., Swain, B.E. et al. High throughput, label-free isolation of circulating tumor cell clusters in meshed microwells. Nat Commun 13, 3385 (2022).