Myrkhiyeva Zhuldyz, Seitkamal Kuanysh, Ashikbayeva Zhannat, Taizhanova Assiya, Tosi Daniele, Bekmurzayeva Aliya
Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioinstruments, Center for Life Sciences, National Laboratory Astana, Nazarbayev University, Astana 010000, Kazakhstan.
School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Astana 010000, Kazakhstan.
Explor Target Antitumor Ther. 2025 May 29;6:1002321. doi: 10.37349/etat.2025.1002321. eCollection 2025.
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cancer cells that are detached from the primary and metastatic tumor site and invade the bloodstream. Most importantly, CTCs are the key players in the development of metastasis. As one of the main components of liquid biopsy, they may significantly contribute to improvements in early cancer diagnosis, monitoring response to therapy, and predicting recurrence of the disease. Although identifying and analyzing CTCs offers the potential for a real-time liquid biopsy, their detection is associated with a number of challenges, which mainly stem from three sources: complexity of the CTCs, complexity of the media (blood), and performance of the detection assays. Particularly, low concentration of the CTCs and the presence of a vast population of hematopoietic cells in the blood make their detection technically complex. The heterogeneity of the target cells and not enough sensitivity of the measuring platforms are also among major technical challenges in CTC detection. Therefore, this review aims to give an update on various methods developed for CTC isolation, including chip-based assays and biosensors. The work will elucidate various challenges associated with the isolation and detection of CTCs and showcase the studies that aimed to tackle them. A number of available commercial platforms for CTC detection and hurdles associated with their widespread applications in clinical settings will also be discussed.
循环肿瘤细胞（CTCs）是从原发性和转移性肿瘤部位脱离并侵入血液循环的癌细胞。最重要的是，循环肿瘤细胞是转移发生的关键因素。作为液体活检的主要组成部分之一，它们可能对早期癌症诊断的改善、治疗反应监测以及疾病复发预测有显著贡献。尽管识别和分析循环肿瘤细胞为实时液体活检提供了可能，但其检测面临诸多挑战，这些挑战主要源于三个方面：循环肿瘤细胞的复杂性、介质（血液）的复杂性以及检测方法的性能。特别是，循环肿瘤细胞浓度低以及血液中存在大量造血细胞使得其检测在技术上较为复杂。靶细胞的异质性以及测量平台灵敏度不足也是循环肿瘤细胞检测中的主要技术挑战。因此，本综述旨在介绍为循环肿瘤细胞分离开发的各种方法的最新情况，包括基于芯片的检测方法和生物传感器。这项工作将阐明与循环肿瘤细胞分离和检测相关的各种挑战，并展示旨在解决这些挑战的研究。还将讨论一些现有的用于循环肿瘤细胞检测的商业平台以及它们在临床环境中广泛应用所面临的障碍。
