Rapid Capture and Photocatalytic Inactivation of Target Cells from Whole Blood by Rotating Janus Nanotubes

Effective isolation and removal of target tumor cells from patients’ peripheral blood are of great importance to clinical prognosis and recovery. However, the extremely low quantity of target cells in peripheral blood becomes one of the challenges in this respect. Herein, we design and synthesize an innovative nanostructure based on magnetic TiO2 nanotubes with Pt nanoparticles’ asymmetrical decoration for effectively capturing and inactivating target cells. Using CCRF-CEM as the model cell, the resulting nanotubes with accurate modification of recognition probes exhibit high selectivity and cell-isolation efficiency upon real blood samples. Particularly, the target cells are selectively captured at a low concentration with a recovery rate of 73.0 ± 11.5% at five cells per milliliter for whole blood samples. Consequently, benefitting from the remarkable photocatalytic activity of the Janus nanotubes, these isolated cells can be rapidly inactivated via light-emitting diode (LED) irradiation with an ignorable effect on normal cells. This work offers a new paradigm for high-efficient isolating/killing target cells from a complex medium.