Karimi Nasrin, Oloomi Mana, Orafa Zahra
Department of Molecular Biology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
Avicenna J Med Biotechnol. 2020 Jul-Sep;12(3):148-156.
Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) detection in peripheral blood of epithelial cancer patients is an indicator of the presence of primary tumors and metastasis. The CTC phenotype detection uses epithelial markers in defining, detecting, and isolating CTCs. Circulating cell-separation technologies, with the epithelial origin, can be identified by epithelial biomarkers, with different techniques such as flow cytometry. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the expression of molecular Cytokeratins (CKs), CK7, CK8, CK18, CK19 (Pan-CK) and Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule (EpCAM) markers for CTC detection.
The Magnetic Activated Cell Sorting (MACS) was used to identify CTCs in the blood of patients. Specific antibodies to EpCAM and Pan-CK were used and analyzed by flow cytometry. In this study, 35 blood samples of patients with breast cancer were assessed before any treatment and 35 healthy blood samples as the control were evaluated.
Expression of CK markers in the peripheral blood of breast cancer patients was statistically significant with p≤0.05, specifically at stages II-IV, but it was not significant in patients at stage I and healthy controls. Biomarkers expression in the blood of patients and healthy controls was assessed along with the pathologic characteristics of patients.
CTC assessment by flow cytometry in patients with breast cancer could not only be used for detection but also can be considered as a source of specific and subjective evaluation for monitoring the therapy. Besides, the sensitivity and specificity of CTC detection were shown that could be enhanced by specific CK markers.
上皮癌患者外周血中循环肿瘤细胞(CTC)的检测是原发性肿瘤和转移存在的指标。CTC表型检测使用上皮标志物来定义、检测和分离CTC。具有上皮起源的循环细胞分离技术可通过上皮生物标志物识别,采用不同技术如流式细胞术。本研究的目的是评估用于CTC检测的分子细胞角蛋白(CKs)、CK7、CK8、CK18、CK19(泛CK)和上皮细胞粘附分子(EpCAM)标志物的表达。
采用磁性激活细胞分选(MACS)技术识别患者血液中的CTC。使用针对EpCAM和泛CK的特异性抗体,并通过流式细胞术进行分析。本研究评估了35例乳腺癌患者在任何治疗前的血样,并评估了35例健康血样作为对照。
乳腺癌患者外周血中CK标志物的表达具有统计学意义(p≤0.05),特别是在II-IV期,但在I期患者和健康对照中无统计学意义。评估了患者血液和健康对照中生物标志物的表达以及患者的病理特征。
通过流式细胞术对乳腺癌患者进行CTC评估不仅可用于检测,还可被视为监测治疗的特异性和主观评估来源。此外,结果表明特定的CK标志物可提高CTC检测的敏感性和特异性。