Burchill S A, Bradbury M F, Pittman K, Southgate J, Smith B, Selby P
ICRF Cancer Medicine Research Unit, Leeds Research School of Medicine, St. James's University Hospital, UK.
Br J Cancer. 1995 Feb;71(2):278-81. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1995.56.
Circulating cancer cells in the blood play a central role in the metastatic process. Their number can be very small and techniques for their detection need to be both sensitive and specific. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been successfully used to detect small numbers of tumour cells in haematological cancer in which abnormalities in DNA are sufficiently consistent to make this possible. For most solid tumours this not yet feasible. However, we have found that reverse transcriptase (RT)-PRC for tissue-specific gene expression is a useful technique for identifying small numbers of circulating cells in melanoma and neuroblastoma patients. In this report we describe detection of colon carcinoma cells by RT-PCR using CK 20 mRNA as a marker. Unlike other cytokeratin genes examined (CK 8 and CK 19), CK 20 was not transcribed in normal haematopoietic cells. This suggests a role for RT-PCR in the detection of colon carcinoma metastasis in blood and bone marrow, using CK 20 as the target gene. Future analysis of clinical material will determine the clinical significance of this technique.
血液中的循环癌细胞在转移过程中起着核心作用。它们的数量可能非常少，检测它们的技术需要兼具敏感性和特异性。聚合酶链反应（PCR）已成功用于检测血液系统癌症中的少量肿瘤细胞，其中DNA异常足够一致，使得这成为可能。对于大多数实体瘤来说，这尚未可行。然而，我们发现用于组织特异性基因表达的逆转录酶（RT）-PCR是一种用于识别黑色素瘤和神经母细胞瘤患者中少量循环细胞的有用技术。在本报告中，我们描述了使用CK 20 mRNA作为标志物通过RT-PCR检测结肠癌细胞。与其他检测的细胞角蛋白基因（CK 8和CK 19）不同，CK 20在正常造血细胞中不转录。这表明以CK 20作为靶基因的RT-PCR在检测血液和骨髓中结肠癌转移方面具有作用。对临床材料的未来分析将确定该技术的临床意义。
