Characterization of circulating tumor cell aggregates identified in patients with epithelial tumors

Edward H. Cho, Marco Wendel, Madelyn Luttgen, Craig Yoshioka, Dena Marrinucci, Daniel Lazar, Ethan Schram, Jorge Nieva, Lyudmila Bazhenova, Alison Morgan, Andrew H. Ko, W. Michael Korn, Anand Kolatkar, Kelly Bethel, Peter Kuhn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

173 Scopus citations

Abstract

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been implicated as a population of cells that may seed metastasis and venous thromboembolism (VTE), two major causes of mortality in cancer patients. Thus far, existing CTC detection technologies have been unable to reproducibly detect CTC aggregates in order to address what contribution CTC aggregates may make to metastasis or VTE. We report here an enrichment-free immunofluorescence detection method that can reproducibly detect and enumerate homotypic CTC aggregates in patient samples. We identified CTC aggregates in 43% of 86 patient samples. The fraction of CTC aggregation was investigated in blood draws from 24 breast, 14 non-small cell lung, 18 pancreatic, 15 prostate stage IV cancer patients and 15 normal blood donors. Both single CTCs and CTC aggregates were measured to determine whether differences exist in the physical characteristics of these two populations. Cells contained in CTC aggregates had less area and length, on average, than single CTCs. Nuclear to cytoplasmic ratios between single CTCs and CTC aggregates were similar. This detection method may assist future studies in determining which population of cells is more physically likely to contribute to metastasis and VTE.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number016001
JournalPhysical Biology
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2012
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biophysics
  • Structural Biology
  • Molecular Biology
  • Cell Biology

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