Frontier Oncol: Developing new technology for capturing circulating tumor cells

During tumor metastasis, tumor cells enter the circulatory system and become circulating tumor cells, which can reach distant tissues through the circulatory system to form metastatic lesions. In recent years, there has been an increasing understanding of circulating tumor cells, and collecting and analyzing circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood has become increasingly important for understanding cancer progression, invasion, and metastasis.

Counting and characterizing circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood of solid tumor patients before, during, and after treatment has become a valuable tool for disease classification, prognosis assessment, and prediction and monitoring of treatment response. At present, many techniques for isolating circulating tumor cells are based on the expression of epithelial cell surface adhesion molecules (EpCAM, CD326) on the surface of tumor cells. However, tumor cells often lack the expression of epithelial cell surface markers, including EpCAM, during epithelial mesenchymal transition. Therefore, many circulating tumor cell capture techniques based on the above principles cannot effectively obtain mesenchymal circulating tumor cells.

Researchers from Germany have developed a new technique for isolating circulating tumor cells using a monoclonal antibody targeting HSP70 on the membrane, which can capture circulating tumor cells from the peripheral blood of patients with different types of tumors. This method is more reliable in capturing circulating tumor cells. Compared to EpCAM, the expression of mHsp70 remains stably upregulated in migrating cells, mesenchymal circulating tumor cells, metastatic lesions, and cells undergoing EMT.

This study developed a new technique for capturing circulating tumor cells using antibodies targeting Hsp70 on the membrane, which is more conducive to the application of circulating tumor cells. The relevant research results were published in the academic journal Frontiers in Oncology. (Biological Valley)

Original source:

Stephanie Breuninger, et al. Membrane Hsp70—A Novel Target for the Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells After Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition. Front. Oncol. , 01 November 2018.