Fadlon E J, Rees R C, McIntyre C, Sharrard R M, Lawry J, Hamdy F C
Institute for Cancer Studies, University of Sheffield Medical School, UK.
Br J Cancer. 1996 Aug;74(3):400-5. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1996.372.
The presence of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-positive cells has previously been demonstrated in the peripheral blood of prostate cancer patients by flow cytometry (FC), but the identity of these cells has not been established. In this study, the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was compared with analytical FC in an attempt to detect and characterise these cells. Peripheral blood was obtained from 12 patients with newly diagnosed and untreated prostate cancer and five controls. Nine of the 12 patients with prostate cancer (75%) had circulating PSA-positive cells as shown by FC. Only one of those patients (11.1%) was found to express PSA mRNA by RT-PCR. The absence of PSA mRNA in the majority of samples showing PSA-positive cells suggests that they do not represent haematogenous micrometastases. PSA-positive cells in the blood could represent monocytes that express PSA, either following binding/phagocytosis of free serum PSA or phagocytosis of tumour cells.
此前通过流式细胞术（FC）已证实前列腺癌患者外周血中存在前列腺特异性抗原（PSA）阳性细胞，但这些细胞的身份尚未明确。在本研究中，将逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）与分析性FC进行比较，以试图检测并表征这些细胞。从12例新诊断且未经治疗的前列腺癌患者和5名对照者获取外周血。FC结果显示，12例前列腺癌患者中有9例（75%）存在循环PSA阳性细胞。通过RT-PCR仅发现其中1例患者（11.1%）表达PSA mRNA。大多数显示PSA阳性细胞的样本中缺乏PSA mRNA，这表明它们不代表血行微转移。血液中的PSA阳性细胞可能代表表达PSA的单核细胞，这可能是在游离血清PSA结合/吞噬或肿瘤细胞吞噬之后发生的。
