Falcon 50 ml conical centrifuge tubes

Blood samples were collected from 7 patients of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with malignant pleural effusion (MPE), and PE samples were collected from 16 patients of NSCLC with MPE and 6 patients with bacterial pneumonia with benign pleural effusion (BPE). All patients were diagnosed at the Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu between June 2020 and June 2022. Among these, PE samples from 3 patients with MPE were used for comparison of isolation methods, Blood samples from 7 patients with MPE and PE samples from 13 patients with MPE and 6 cases with BPE were used for subsequent validation. The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu and signed informed consent was obtained from the patients. All patients with lung cancer were newly diagnosed without receiving any chemotherapy or radiation therapy and histologically confirmed by two different pathologists.
For PE samples collection, PE was freshly collected and aliquoted using Falcon™ 50 mL conical centrifuge tubes and stored at −80 °C. For blood samples collection, the fasting venous blood of the subjects was collected by EDTA anticoagulant tube. After that, the blood samples were processed to deplete platelets and blood cells by two-step centrifugation at 2,500 × g for 15 min at room temperature. Then the plasma was aliquoted and stored at −80 °C for further study.

Among patients diagnosed and treated for pulmonary adenocarcinoma with pleural effusion at Konkuk University Medical Center and Asan Medical Center between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2015, fifty patients with archival pleural effusion samples were included in the analysis. Demographics and clinical data of the included patients were reviewed. This study was conducted in accordance with the amended Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of Konkuk University Medical Center and Asan Medical Center, and written informed consent was obtained from all patients. After 50 mL of a pleural effusion sample was centrifuged using Falcon™ 50 mL conical centrifuge tubes at 1000 g for 10 min at 4 °C to remove cells and debris, the supernatant of the pleural effusion was separated and stored at − 80 °C until further evaluation.

Solid SiO₂ core particles with a nominal particle size of 160 nm in diameter (sSiO₂-160) were prepared by the Stöber method according to the procedure adopted from Chen et al. [21 (link)]. 6 mL of TEOS was rapidly added into a mixture of 74 mL ethanol, 10 mL Milli-Q water (18.2 MΩ cm⁻¹), and 3.14 mL ammonia solution under constant stirring of 500 rpm at 30 °C in a 250 mL Schott Duran^® borosilicate glass bottle. Then the reaction was carried out for one hour before the resulting sSiO₂-160 particles were collected by centrifugation (10 min at 5000× g at room temperature in Falcon™ 50 mL conical centrifuge tubes) and washed two times in Milli-Q water and two times in absolute ethanol, then dried under vacuum overnight.
Solid SiO₂ core particles with a nominal particle size of 280 nm in diameter (sSiO₂-280) were prepared by altering the water–ethanol–ammonia molar ratio. Six mL TEOS was rapidly added to a mixture of 20 mL Milli-Q water, 60 mL absolute ethanol, and 7.5 mL ammonia solution, with continuous stirring of 500 rpm at 30 °C. The reaction was performed for one hour, and the resulting sSiO₂ particles were washed by centrifugation using the protocol described above.