ABSTRACT
Cell separation or sorting plays an important role in basic research and clinical applications such as the differentiation of stem cells, detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and quantification of CD4+ T lymphocytes in peripheral blood. Microfluidics-based cell separation or sorting often relies on cell capture using surface chemistry, mechanical filtering, dielectrophoresis, or a combination of these methods. Among these, the most popular method is antibody-based surface chemistry. This chapter presents recent advances in surface chemistry for cell capture in microfluidic systems, strategies to improve cell capture efficiency, and clinical applications of cell separation and quantification. Antibody–ligand-based cell capture is most commonly used to capture target cells from biological samples. Aptamers are also commonly used to capture target molecules from biological samples with high affinity and specificity. DNA-barcode technology was initially designed to detect low levels of protein or nucleic acid with the aid of gold nanoparticles (NPs) and magnetic microparticles.
