Utilizing a high-throughput microdevice to study breast tumor cells clustering and metastasis

Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters, which are multicellular groups of CTCs, were recently suggested to had the greater potential forming distal metastasis than single CTCs. However, our understanding CTC clusters is still limited since there few existing methods study cancer cells aggregation kinetics, especially for a small number cells. Herein we report high-throughput miniaturized microwell-based aggregation-chip (AG-chip) enable better characterize clustering process. We successfully demonstrated capability AG-chip in determining aggregation, and found that: (1) high metastatic breast (MDA-MB-231 & MDA-MB-436) have stronger capacities those low (MCF-7 SK-BR-3); (2) with similar ability distinguished through analysis kinetics; (3) detected can be used indicate cells; (4) inhibition integrins could regulate via blockage adhesion or/and migration. This newly developed microdevice may promote further metastasis.