Analytical Sciences

Microdevice in Cellular Pathology: Microfluidic Platforms for Fluorescence in situ Hybridization and Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells

Kae SATO

Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Japan Women’s University, Bunkyo, Tokyo 112-8681, Japan

Microfluidic devices enable the miniaturization, integration, automation, and parallelization of chemical and biochemical processes. This new technology also provides opportunity for expansion in the field of cellular pathology. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is a well-known gene-based method to image genetic abnormalities. Development of a FISH microfluidic platform has offered the possibility of automation with significant time and cost reductions, which overcomes many drawbacks of the current protocols. Microfluidic devices are also powerful tools for single-cell analysis. Capturing the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples is one of the most promising approaches to enable the early diagnosis of cancer. The microfluidic devices are also useful to isolate rare CTCs at high efficiency and purity. In this review, I outline recent FISH and CTC analyses using microfluidic devices, and describe their applications for the cellular diagnosis of cancers.

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