早期乳腺癌中 EpCAM 阳性和 EpCAM 阴性肿瘤细胞的特征。

Characterization of EpCAM-Positive and EpCAM-Negative Tumor Cells in Early-Stage Breast Cancer.

机构信息

The Department of General and Molecular Pathology, Cancer Research Institute, Tomsk National Research Medical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk 634009, Russia.

The Laboratory of Molecular Therapy of Cancer, Cancer Research Institute, Tomsk National Research Medical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk 634009, Russia.

出版信息

Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Oct 16;25(20):11109. doi: 10.3390/ijms252011109.

DOI:10.3390/ijms252011109

PMID:39456890

原文链接:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11508537/

Abstract

Most studies on CTCs have focused on isolating cells that express EpCAM. In this study, we emphasize the presence of EpCAM-negative and EpCAM CTCs, in addition to EpCAM CTCs, in early BC. We evaluated stem cell markers (CD44/CD24 and CD133) and EMT markers (N-cadherin) in each subpopulation. Our findings indicate that all stemness variants were present in both EpCAM and EpCAM-negative CTCs, whereas only one variant of stemness (nonCD44+CD24-/CD133+) was observed among EpCAM CTCs. Nearly all EpCAM CTCs were represented by CD133+ stem cells. Notably, the hybrid EMT phenotype was more prevalent among EpCAM-negative CTCs. scRNA-seq of isolated CTCs and primary tumor partially confirmed this pattern. Therefore, further investigation is imperative to elucidate the prognostic significance of EpCAM-negative and EpCAM CTCs.

摘要

大多数关于 CTCs 的研究都集中在分离表达 EpCAM 的细胞上。在这项研究中，我们强调了 EpCAM 阴性和 EpCAM CTCs 的存在，除了 EpCAM CTCs 外，在早期 BC 中也存在。我们评估了每个亚群中的干细胞标记物（CD44/CD24 和 CD133）和 EMT 标记物（N-钙黏蛋白）。我们的研究结果表明，所有的干性变体都存在于 EpCAM 和 EpCAM 阴性 CTCs 中，而 EpCAM CTCs 中只观察到一种干性变体（非 CD44+CD24-/CD133+）。几乎所有的 EpCAM CTCs 都是由 CD133+干细胞组成的。值得注意的是，混合 EMT 表型在 EpCAM 阴性 CTCs 中更为常见。分离的 CTCs 和原发性肿瘤的 scRNA-seq 部分证实了这一模式。因此，进一步的研究对于阐明 EpCAM 阴性和 EpCAM CTCs 的预后意义至关重要。