Purpose: To better direct targeted therapies to the patients with tumors that express the target, there is an urgent need for blood-based assays that provide expression information on a consistent basis in real time with minimal patient discomfort.We aimed to use immunomagnetic-capture technology to isolate and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTC) from small volumes of peripheral blood of patients with advanced prostate cancer. Experimental Design: Blood was collected from 63 patients with metastatic prostate cancer. CTCs were isolated by the CellSearch system, which uses antibodies to epithelial cell adhesion marker and immunomagnetic capture. CTCs were defined as nucleated cells positive for cytokeratins and negative for CD45. Captured cells were analyzed by immunofluorescence, Papanicolau staining, and fluorescence in situ hybridization. Results: Most patients (65%) had 5 or more CTCs per 7.5 mL blood sample. Cell counts were consistent between laboratories (c = 0.99) and did not change significantly over 72 or 96 h of storage before processing (c = 0.99). Their identity as prostate cancer cells was confirmed by conventional cytologic analysis. Molecular profiling, including analysis of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression, chromosome ploidy, and androgen receptor (AR) gene amplification, was possible for all prostate cancer patients with z5 CTCs. Conclusions: The analysis of cancer-related alterations at the DNA and protein level from CTCs is feasible in a hospital-based clinical laboratory. The alterations observed in EGFR and AR suggest that the methodology may have a role in clinical decision making.
Significant progress on upconversion‐nanoparticle (UCNP)‐based probes is witnessed in recent years. Compared with traditional fluorescent probes (e.g., organic dyes, metal complexes, or inorganic quantum dots), UCNPs have many advantages such as non‐autofluorescence, high chemical stability, large light‐penetration depth, long lifetime, and less damage to samples. This article focuses on recent achievements in the usage of lanthanide‐doped UCNPs as efficient probes for biodetection since 2014. The mechanisms of upconversion as well as the luminescence resonance energy transfer process is introduced first, followed by a detailed summary on the recent researches of UCNP‐based biodetections including the detection of inorganic ions, gas molecules, reactive oxygen species, and thiols and hydrogen sulfide.
Resistance to trastuzumab and concomitantly distal metastasis are leading causes of mortality in HER2-positive breast cancers, the molecular basis of which remains largely unknown. Here, we generated trastuzumab-resistant breast cancer cells with increased tumorigenicity and invasiveness compared with parental cells, and observed robust epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and consistently elevated TGF-b signaling in these cells. which Breast cancers remain the most common malignancies in women with one million newly diagnosed cases and 400,000 deaths worldwide per year.1 The vast majority of these deaths are attributed to distal metastasis and resistance to available therapeutics.
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