Skip to main content

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of affinity-based and label-free isolation [17, 117, 118]

From: Microfluidics for studying metastatic patterns of lung cancer

 

Advantages

Disadvantages

Affinity-based isolation

Highly specific

High purity of CTCs

Application of the combination of antibodies allow to capture cells with epithelial and mesenchymal phenotype

Capture of CTC clusters

Separation/categorization based on abundance of Ep-CAM expression

Limitations in velocity and flow

Blood volume

Decrease of cell viability during the detachment process

High cost of antibodies

Low capture efficiency

Label-free isolation

High-throughput

Allow CTCs capture regardless of subpopulation differences and EMT process

Allow further cell molecular characterization

Allow cell culturing and further recovery in suspension

Allow preservation of cell clusters to study their metastatic ability

Low cost

Capture depends on size pores

Overlapping in CTCs and leucocytes sizes

Pores clogging

Low sample purity

Low CTCs recovery