Cancer detection and diagnosis using electrospun fibers

Several characteristics of electrospun fibers enable them to be used for cancer detection. Its high surface area and ease of incorporating biomolecules made it highly sensitive as sensor. Capturing or detection of circulating tumour cells has always been a challenge due to its low numbers in the blood stream. Electrospun membranes have been known to facilitate rapid cell adhesion and biomolecules have been successfully incorporated into the fibers for selective cell capturing. This makes it an attractive candidate for detection of tumour cells.

One concept for cancer detection is to use cancer markers. Wang et al (2013) used electrospun polystyrene (PS) fibers incorporated with antibodies to detect three cancer markers, alpha fetoprotein (AFP), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF). The electrospun substrate was shown to be more efficient and sensitive in detecting the markers compared to conventional planar PS substrates. The improved performance can be attributed to the much higher surface area of the nanofibers that made up the electrospun substrate.

Fluorescence pictures of cancer biomarkers on electrospun PS substrates obtained by an inverted fluorescence microscope (200×). (A) AFP (DyLight 488, green), (B) CEA (DyLight 405, blue), (C) VEGF (DyLight 649, red); (a-c) light field, (d-f) fluorescence field, (g-i) superposition view of the two fields. Wang et al (2013) PLoS ONE 2013; 8(12): e82888.

Electrospun fibers incorporated with biomolecules are not restricted to detection of cancer markers. They may also be used in the capturing of circulating tumour cells. The ability to capture circulating tumour cells allows the detection and diagnosis of metastatic cancer cells. Fan et al (2016) used folic acid modified electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol)/polyethyleneimine nanofibers for capturing of cancer cells overexpressing FA receptors such as ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancers. The FA modified nanofibers showed good hemocompatibility and specificity towards the targeted cancer cells. Ueki et al (2016) used electrospun polystyrene (PS) fibers immobilized with anti-EpCAM antibody for capturing of MCF-7 cells that express EpCAM on their surfaces. Constructed with electrospun PS microfibers with membrane pore size of 10 µm, which is about the size of leucocytes and circulating tumour cells, Ueki et al (2016) used the microfiber filter with vacuum aspiration to pass blood through it. The membrane was found to be highly specific in filtering MCF-7 cells from whole blood and a mixture containing CCRF-CEM cells that do not express EpCAM.