Alix-Panabières Catherine, Pantel Klaus
Laboratory of Rare Human Circulating Cells (LCCRH), Department of Cell and Tissue Biopathology of Tumors, University Medical Centre, Montpellier, France.
EA2415 - Help for Personalized Decision: Methodological Aspects, University Institute of Clinical Research (IURC), Montpellier University, France.
FEBS Lett. 2017 Aug;591(15):2241-2250. doi: 10.1002/1873-3468.12662. Epub 2017 May 27.
"Liquid biopsy" has been introduced for the analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of cancer patients, and this new diagnostic approach has received enormous attention. CTCs are derived from primary tumors and metastatic lesions and, therefore, harbor important information on the molecular characteristics relevant to tumor progression and cancer therapy. Analyses of CTCs have paved new diagnostic avenues with obvious clinical implications for personalized medicine. Key areas of clinical applications of CTCs include detection of cancer, prediction of prognosis in patients with curable disease, monitoring systemic therapies, and stratification of patients based on the detection of therapeutic targets or resistance mechanisms. The present Review will focus on the current knowledge derived from single-cell analysis of CTCs at the DNA, RNA, and protein level and emphasize the unique opportunities for performing functional studies that aim to identify the metastasis-initiator cells in cancer patients and obtain predictive information for steering cancer therapies.
“液体活检”已被引入用于分析癌症患者血液中的循环肿瘤细胞（CTC），这种新的诊断方法受到了极大关注。CTC源自原发性肿瘤和转移病灶，因此，携带着与肿瘤进展和癌症治疗相关的分子特征的重要信息。对CTC的分析为个性化医疗开辟了具有明显临床意义的新诊断途径。CTC临床应用的关键领域包括癌症检测、可治愈疾病患者的预后预测、全身治疗监测以及基于治疗靶点或耐药机制检测对患者进行分层。本综述将聚焦于目前从DNA、RNA和蛋白质水平对CTC进行单细胞分析所获得的知识，并强调开展功能研究的独特机会，这些研究旨在识别癌症患者中的转移起始细胞，并获取指导癌症治疗的预测信息。
