scholarly journals Circulating Tumor Cells from Enumeration to Analysis: Current Challenges and Future Opportunities

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2723
Author(s):  
Yu-Ping Yang ◽  
Teresa M. Giret ◽  
Richard J. Cote
Keyword(s):  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Detection Sensitivity ◽  
Clinical Utilization ◽  
Diagnosis And Prognosis ◽  
Early Cancer Diagnosis ◽  
Potential Marker ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Downstream Analysis

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been recognized as a major contributor to distant metastasis. Their unique role as metastatic seeds renders them a potential marker in the circulation for early cancer diagnosis and prognosis as well as monitoring of therapeutic response. In the past decade, researchers mainly focused on the development of isolation techniques for improving the recovery rate and purity of CTCs. These developed techniques have significantly increased the detection sensitivity and enumeration accuracy of CTCs. Currently, significant efforts have been made toward comprehensive molecular characterization, ex vivo expansion of CTCs, and understanding the interactions between CTCs and their associated cells (e.g., immune cells and stromal cells) in the circulation. In this review, we briefly summarize existing CTC isolation technologies and specifically focus on advances in downstream analysis of CTCs and their potential applications in precision medicine. We also discuss the current challenges and future opportunities in their clinical utilization.

scholarly journals Nanotechnology-Assisted Isolation and Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells on Microfluidic Devices

Micromachines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Cheng ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Yang Zhao ◽  
Lina Zhang ◽  
Lingqian Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Liquid Biopsy ◽  
Cancer Metastasis ◽  
Human Peripheral Blood ◽  
Microfluidic Devices ◽  
Detection Sensitivity ◽  
Cell Capture ◽  
Primary Tumors ◽  
Downstream Analysis

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), a type of cancer cell that spreads from primary tumors into human peripheral blood and are considered as a new biomarker of cancer liquid biopsy. It provides the direction for understanding the biology of cancer metastasis and progression. Isolation and analysis of CTCs offer the possibility for early cancer detection and dynamic prognosis monitoring. The extremely low quantity and high heterogeneity of CTCs are the major challenges for the application of CTCs in liquid biopsy. There have been significant research endeavors to develop efficient and reliable approaches to CTC isolation and analysis in the past few decades. With the advancement of microfabrication and nanomaterials, a variety of approaches have now emerged for CTC isolation and analysis on microfluidic platforms combined with nanotechnology. These new approaches show advantages in terms of cell capture efficiency, purity, detection sensitivity and specificity. This review focuses on recent progress in the field of nanotechnology-assisted microfluidics for CTC isolation and detection. Firstly, CTC isolation approaches using nanomaterial-based microfluidic devices are summarized and discussed. The different strategies for CTC release from the devices are specifically outlined. In addition, existing nanotechnology-assisted methods for CTC downstream analysis are summarized. Some perspectives are discussed on the challenges of current methods for CTC studies and promising research directions.

scholarly journals Microfluidic Chip-Based Cancer Diagnosis and Prediction of Relapse by Detecting Circulating Tumor Cells and Circulating Cancer Stem Cells

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1385
Author(s):  
Hyeon-Yeol Cho ◽  
Jin-Ha Choi ◽  
Joungpyo Lim ◽  
Sang-Nam Lee ◽  
Jeong-Woo Choi
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Metastatic Cancer ◽  
Cancer Prognosis ◽  
Optical Biosensors ◽  
Diagnosis And Prognosis ◽  
Noise Factors ◽  
Prediction Of Relapse

Detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has been considered one of the best biomarkers in liquid biopsy for early diagnosis and prognosis monitoring in cancer. A major challenge of using CTCs is detecting extremely low-concentrated targets in the presence of high noise factors such as serum and hematopoietic cells. This review provides a selective overview of the recent progress in the design of microfluidic devices with optical sensing tools and their application in the detection and analysis of CTCs and their small malignant subset, circulating cancer stem cells (CCSCs). Moreover, discussion of novel strategies to analyze the differentiation of circulating cancer stem cells will contribute to an understanding of metastatic cancer, which can help clinicians to make a better assessment. We believe that the topic discussed in this review can provide brief guideline for the development of microfluidic-based optical biosensors in cancer prognosis monitoring and clinical applications.

scholarly journals A small molecule screen identified N-Acetyl-L-cysteine for promoting ex vivo growth of single circulating tumor cells

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teng Teng ◽  
Mohamed Kamal ◽  
Oihana Iriondo ◽  
Yonatan Amzaleg ◽  
Chunqiao Luo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Small Molecule ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Single Cells ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Blood Draw ◽  
Small Molecule Screen ◽  
Functional Analyses ◽  
Single Ctcs

AbstractCirculating tumor cells (CTCs) can be isolated via a minimally invasive blood draw and are considered a “liquid biopsy” of their originating solid tumors. CTCs contain a small subset of metastatic precursors that can form metastases in secondary organs, and provide a resource to identify mechanisms underlying metastasis-initiating properties. Despite technological advancements that allow for highly sensitive approaches of detection and isolation, CTCs are very rare and often present as single cells, posing an extreme challenge for ex vivo expansion after isolation. Here, using previously established patient-derived CTC lines, we performed a small molecule drug screening to identify compounds that can improve ex vivo culture efficiency for single CTCs. We found that N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and other antioxidants can promote ex vivo expansion of single CTCs, by reducing oxidative and other stress particularly at the initial stage of single cell expansion. RNA-seq analysis of growing clones and non-growing clones confirmed the effect by NAC, but also indicate that NAC-induced decrease in oxidative stress is insufficient for promoting proliferation of a subset of cells with heterogeneous quiescent and senescent features. Despite the challenge in expanding all CTCs, NAC treatment lead to establishment of single CTC clones that have similar tumorigenic features, which will facilitate future functional analyses.

scholarly journals Dynamic Changes in Numbers and Properties of Circulating Tumor Cells and Their Potential Applications

Cancers ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 2369-2386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ju-Yu Tseng ◽  
Chih-Yung Yang ◽  
Shu-Ching Liang ◽  
Ren-Shyan Liu ◽  
Jeng-Kai Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
Potential Applications

scholarly journals Nanoemulsions to support ex vivo cell culture of breast cancer circulating tumor cells

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 100265
Author(s):  
N. Carmona-Ule ◽  
C. Abuín-Redondo ◽  
C. Costa ◽  
R. Piñeiro ◽  
T. Pereira-Veiga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cell Culture ◽  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo

Circulating Tumor Cells in Small Cell Lung Cancer: Ex Vivo Expansion

Lung ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 193 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Hamilton ◽  
Otto Burghuber ◽  
Robert Zeillinger
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Small Cell Lung Cancer ◽  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Cell Lung Cancer ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Ex Vivo Expansion ◽  
Small Cell ◽  
Small Cell Lung

Biodegradable polymeric micelle-encapsulated doxorubicin suppresses tumor metastasis by killing circulating tumor cells

Nanoscale ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 5270-5280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Senyi Deng ◽  
Qinjie Wu ◽  
Yuwei Zhao ◽  
Xin Zheng ◽  
Ni Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Therapy ◽  
Tumor Cells ◽  
Circulating Tumor Cells ◽  
Mouse Models ◽  
Tumor Metastasis ◽  
Polymeric Micelle ◽  
Potential Applications

Doxorubicin (Dox) micelles showed improved anti-metastasis activity by killing circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in zebrafish and mouse models, which may have potential applications in cancer therapy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document