Performance evaluation of a high‐throughput separation system for circulating tumor cells based on microcavity array

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are widely known as useful biomarkers in the liquid biopsies of cancer patients. Although single‐cell genetic analysis of CTCs is a promising diagnostic tool that can provide detailed clinical information for precision medicine, the capacity of single‐CTC isolation for genetic analysis requires improvement. To overcome this problem, we previously developed a multiple single‐cell encapsulation system for CTCs using hydrogel‐encapsulation, which allowed for the high‐throughput isolation of single CTCs. However, isolation of a single cell from adjacent cells remained difficult and often resulted in contamination by neighboring cells due to the limited resolution of the generated hydrogel. We developed a novel multiple single‐cell encapsulation system equipped with a high magnification lens for high throughput and a more accurate single‐cell encapsulation. The multiple single‐cell encapsulation system has sufficient sensitivity to detect immune‐stained CTCs, and could also generate a micro‐scaled hydrogel that can isolate a single cell from adjacent cells within 10 µm, with high efficiency. The proposed system enables high throughput and accurate single‐cell manipulation and genome amplification without contamination from neighboring cells.