Interfacial Polymerization Produced Magnetic Particles with Nano-Filopodia for Highly Accurate Liquid Biopsy in The Psa Gray Zone.

Magnetic particles are leading separation materials for biological purification and detection. Existing magnetic particles, which almost rely on molecule-level interactions, however, often encounter bottlenecks in highly efficient cell-level separation due to the underestimate of surface structure effects. Here, we report immune cell-inspired magnetic particles with nano-filopodia (NFMPs) produced by interfacial polymerization for highly efficient capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and further accurate clinical diagnosis of prostate cancer. The unprecedented construction of nano-filopodia on polymer-based magnetic particles is achieved by introducing electrostatic interactions in emulsion interfacial polymerization. Due to the unique nano-filopodia, the NFMPs allow remarkably enhanced CTCs capture efficiency (86.5% ± 2.8%) compared with smooth magnetic particles (SMPs, 35.7% ± 5.7%). Under the assistance of machine learning by combining with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and free to total PSA (F/T-PSA), the NFMPs strategy demonstrates high sensitivity (100%), high specificity (93.3%), and a high area under the curve (AUC) value (98.1%) for clinical diagnosis of prostate cancer in the PSA gray zone. The NFMPs are anticipated as an efficient platform for CTCs-based liquid biopsy towards early cancer diagnosis and prognosis evaluation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.