Sensitive Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells by Graphene Oxide Nanoassembly

Technological obstacles in isolation and capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCS) from blood continue to stymie progress in quantitating CTCs for early diagnosis and effective monitoring of  therapeutic response in patients.  CTCs are extremely rare cells (about 1 tumor cell per 1 billion blood cells) that are known to circulate in the peripheral blood of patients with metastatic cancer.  Nagrath et al. demonstrated the efficient and reproducible microfluidic chip, ‘the CTC chip’ to isolate CTCs from the blood of metastatic patients with common epithelial tumors in previous work. Here we have fabricated functionalized graphene oxide nanoassemblies on the patterned gold layer through a microfluidic silicon device as an effective tool to isolate, capture, identify and characterize extremely rare CTCs aimed at the early diagnosis of metastatic disease. Multifunctional biocompatible nanographene oxides with polyethyleneglycol-amine (PEG-NH₂) of various physical sizes have been used to selectively capture cancer cells with high sensitivity.  Graphene itself has potential applications in advanced nanoelectronics, sensors, membranes and composites.  The presented application of graphene materials will be a promising new tool in biomedical translational research.