Recent progress on microfluidic technology-based circulating tumor cell analysis

Accurate cancer theranostics is important to improve the survival rate and life quality. Circulating tumor cell (CTC) is a type of tumor cells that spread through peripheral blood after detaching from a solid tumor, which is the most promising target in liquid biopsy. It offers non-invasive sampling for cancer diagnosis and real-time monitor of biological tumor information to study the mechism of tumor metastasis. However, the extreme rarity and heterogeneity of CTC pose a huge technical challenge for CTC profiling. Various technologies have been proposed. This review aims to provide in-depth insights into CTC related research work from Yang’s group, including CTC targeting molecule discovery, microfluidic-based enrichment and high-throughput single cell analysis.