Novel Chip-Based Blood Assay for Isolation of Circulating Plasma Cells in Myeloma
Posted: Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Researchers from the University of Kansas and the University of North Carolina have developed an inexpensive, highly sensitive microfluidic assay for enumerating circulating plasma cells (CPCs) in peripheral blood in patients with multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders. Steven Soper, PhD, of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, and colleagues created the chip-based test, which can process whole blood directly with no preprocessing. Their research, which may have applications across many cancers, was published in Integrative Biology.
“We’ll be able to eliminate the need for bone marrow biopsies,” stated Dr. Soper in a University of Kansas press release. “From this test, the clinician will be able to determine the stage of the disease, what type of drug will best treat the disease, and monitor for signs of recurrence if the disease goes into remission.”
The device uses sinusoidally shaped microfluidic channels lined with anti-human CD138 monoclonal antibodies that can effectively capture CPCs. It also allows for the release of the CPCs to perform immunophenotyping, clonality testing, fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis, and KRAS-mutation testing. CD138 is expressed in both normal and diseased CPCs but has higher expression in diseased cells.
When the researchers tested the assay using clinical samples, CPCs were identified in 78% of patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), all patients with smoldering and symptomatic multiple myeloma and none in the control group. Additionally, the burden of CPCs was higher in patients with symptomatic multiple myeloma compared with MGUS and smoldering multiple myeloma (P < .05).
