Our experimental setup involves:
1. Collecting mouse blood and staining blood cells red with fluorescent
CellTracker™ dye
2. Culturing MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells and staining green with
fluorescent Vybrant™ dye
3. Spiking blood sample with MDA cells
4. Assembling the MFC with selected filter and injecting diluted blood
sample with a syringe pump
5. Washing the filter with PBS to reduce contamination by leukocytes
We have identified three parameters which affect the specificity of filtration: the sample dilution, the filter pore size, the flow rate of filtration. Fig. 3 illustrates the extremes of either (a) maximizing efficiency or (b) maximizing purity