title: Real-time Detection of Breast Cancer Cells Using Peptide-functionalized Microcantilever Arrays.
abstract: Ligand-directed targeting and capturing of cancer cells is a new approach for detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Ligands such as antibodies have been successfully used for capturing cancer cells and an antibody based system (CellSearch(®)) is currently used clinically to enumerate CTCs. Here we report the use of a peptide moiety in conjunction with a microcantilever array system to selectively detect CTCs resulting from cancer, specifically breast cancer. A sensing microcantilever, functionalized with a breast cancer specific peptide 18-4 (WxEAAYQrFL), showed significant deflection on cancer cell (MCF7 and MDA-MB-231) binding compared to when exposed to noncancerous (MCF10A and HUVEC) cells. The peptide-functionalized microcantilever allowed efficient capture and detection of cancer cells in MCF7 spiked human blood samples emulating CTCs in human blood. A detection limit of 50-100 cancer cells mL(-1) from blood samples was achieved with a capture yield of 80% from spiked whole blood samples. The results emphasize the potential of peptide 18-4 as a novel peptide for capturing and detecting cancer cells in conjunction with nanomechanical cantilever platform. The reported peptide-based cantilever platform represents a new analytical approach that can lead to an alternative to the various detection platforms and can be leveraged to further study CTCs.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E1, Canada.|Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2V4, Canada.
authors.forename: Hashem
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Etayash
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2V4, Canada.
authors.forename: Keren
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E1, Canada.
authors.forename: Sarfuddin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Azmi
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2V4, Canada.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Thundat
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E1, Canada.|Chapman University School of Pharmacy (CUSP), Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus, Chapman University, Irvine, California, 92618-1908, USA.
authors.forename: Kamaljit
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaur
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D002452:Cell Count / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D002469:Cell Separation; D005260:Female; D061307:Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D057230:Limit of Detection; D061986:MCF-7 Cells; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000473:pathology; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance
chemical_list: D009842:Oligopeptides