Design of nanofiber-based platform for leukemia stem cell capture.

Abstract

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is a cancer of hematopoietic cells. It is characterized by the production of BCR-ABL fusion protein. The detection of CML is of utmost importance as the survival period of a malignant cancer is very short. This particular type of cancer is detected by blood counts and bone marrow biopsies.

This study concentrates on devising a new method of detecting CML cells (K562 cell line). This new method involves designing a microfluidic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) platform with nanofibers in the channel to capture the leukemic stem cells. Therefore, this study will include the fabrication of the PDMS platform with CAD designs to illustrate the platform assembly, preparation of nanofibers for the channel and experiments to analyze cell adhesion to various surfaces and coatings and effect of flow rate or shear stress on the adhesion of the suspension cells. The CAD designs are demonstrative to explain the structure, dimensions and the overall assembly of parts to create the nanofiber-based platform.

It is found that among the nanofibers, collagen, fibronectin and coated nanofibers, the fibronectin-coated nanofibers and fibronectin coated surfaces are the best substrates for cell adhesion. It is also seen that collagen-coated nanofibers and fibronectin-coated nanofibers each adhere the most cells at two different flow rates.