A regenerative NanoOctopus based on multivalent-aptamer functionalized magnetic microparticles for effective cell capture in whole blood

Abstract

Isolation of specific rare cell subtypes from whole blood is critical in cellular analysis and important in basic and clinical research. Traditional immuno-magnetic cell capture suffers from suboptimal sensitivity, specificity, and time- and cost-effectiveness. Mimicking the features of octopuses, NanoOctopus devices were developed for cancer cell isolation in whole blood. The device consists of long multimerized aptamer DNA strands, or tentacle DNA, immobilized on magnetic microparticle surfaces. Their ultrahigh sensitivity and specificity are attributed to multivalent binding of the tentacle DNA to cell receptors without steric hindrance. The simple, quick, and non-invasive capture and release of the target cells allows for extensive downstream cellular and molecular analysis and the time- and cost-effectiveness of fabrication and regeneration of the devices makes them attractive for industrial manufacture.