Rapid Electrokinetic Isolation of Cancer-Related Circulating Cell-Free DNA Directly from Blood

The authors used Biological Dynamics AC electrokinetic platform to isolate, to elute and to sequence cell-free DNA from 25 μL unprocessed blood from 15 chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients and 3 healthy individuals. The complete process, blood to PCR, required <10 min.

Sonnenberg A, Marciniak JY, Rassenti L, Ghia EM, Skowronski EA, Manouchehri S, McCanna J, Widhopf GF, Kipps TJ, Heller MJ. Clin Chem. 2013 Nov 22 doi:  10.1373/clinchem.2013.214874  


Background: Circulating cell-free (ccf) DNA is becoming an important biomarker for cancer diagnostics and therapy monitoring. The isolation of ccf-DNA from plasma as a “liquid biopsy” may begin to replace more invasive tissue biopsies for the detection and analysis of cancer-related mutations. Conventional methods for the isolation of ccf-DNA from plasma are costly, time-consuming, and complex, preventing the use of ccf-DNA biomarkers for point-of-care diagnostics and limiting other biomedical research applications.

Conclusion: Rapid isolation of cell-free DNA directly from a drop of blood will advance disease-related biomarker research, accelerate the transition from tissue to liquid biopsies, and enable point-of-care diagnostic systems for patient monitoring.