Publications

Nowadays, liquid biopsy represents one of the most promising techniques for early diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy screening of cancer. This novel methodology includes, among other techniques, the isolation, capture, and analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Nonetheless, the identification of CTC from whole blood is challenging due to their extremely low concentration (1-100 per ml of whole blood), and traditional methods result insufficient in terms of purity, recovery, throughput and/or viability of the processed sample. In this context, the development of microfluidic devices for detecting and isolating CTCs offers a wide range of new opportunities due to their excellent properties for cell manipulation and the advantages to integrate and bring different laboratory processes into the microscale improving the sensitivity, portability, reducing cost and time. This chapter explores current and recent microfluidic approaches that have been developed for the analysis and detection of CTCs, which involve cell capture methods based on affinity binding and label-free methods and detection based on electrical, chemical, and optical sensors. All the exposed technologies seek to overcome the limitations of commercial systems for the analysis and isolation of CTCs, as well as to provide extended analysis that will allow the development of novel and more efficient diagnostic tools.© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

JTD Keywords: cancer detection, cancer diagnosis, cancer-cells, capture, chip, circulating tumor cells, enrichment, liquid biopsy, microchannel, separation, ultra-fast, Cancer detection, Cancer diagnosis, Circulating tumor cells, Label-free isolation, Liquid biopsy, Microfluidics

Two Cys-containing analogues of the anticancer drug Kahalalide F are synthesized and conjugated to 20 and 40 nm gold nanoparticles (GNPs). The resulting complexes are characterized by different analytical techniques to confirm the attachment of peptide to the GNPs. The self-assembly capacity of a peptide dramatically influences the final ratio number of molecules per nanoparticle, saturating the nanoparticle surface and prompting multilayered capping on the surface. In such way, the nanoparticle could act as a concentrator for the delivery of drugs, thereby increasing bioactivity. The GNP sizes and the conjugation have influence on the biological activities. Kahalalide F analogues conjugated with GNPs are located subcellularly at lysosome-like bodies, which may be related to the action mechanism of Kahalalide F. The results suggest that the selective delivery and activity of Kahalalide F analogues can be improved by conjugating the peptides to GNPs.

JTD Keywords: Electrical detection, Cellular uptake, Drug-delivery, Cancer-cells, Peptide, Size, Surface, Absorption, Scattering, Therapy