Clusters of circulating tumor cells: A biophysical and technological perspective

Abstract

The vast majority of cancer associated deaths result from metastasis, yet the behaviors of its most potent cellular driver, circulating tumor cell clusters, are only beginning to be revealed. This review highlights recent advances to our understanding of tumor cell clusters with emphasis on enabling technologies. The importance of intercellular adhesions among cells in clusters have begun to be unraveled with the aid of promising microfluidic strategies for isolating clusters from patient blood. Due to their metastatic potency, the utility of circulating tumor cell clusters for cancer diagnosis, drug screening, precision oncology and as targets of antimetastatic therapeutics are being explored. The continued development of tools for exploring circulating tumor cell clusters will enhance our fundamental understanding of the metastatic process and may be instrumental in devising new strategies to suppress and eliminate metastasis.

Hybrid negative enrichment of circulating tumor cells from whole blood in a 3D-printed monolithic device

“…Therefore, we con-cluded the size range of cells that could pass through the 3 μm-pore membrane filter overlaps with the reported CTC size range only for very small CTCs. 23,60,61 Having said that, we believe post-filtration cell loss can further be reduced by employing a smaller pore size and through further optimization of the processing conditions.…”

Progress in Circulating Tumor Cell Research Using Microfluidic Devices

“…CTCs are captured with an average 183-fold enrichment and 93.8% yield. CTC clusters, which are two or several CTCs attached to each other, are correlated with worse survival rates in patients with cancer, such as prostate, breast, colorectal, and lung cancer [ 30 ]. Thus, CTC clusters play a vital role in the metastatic process.…”

Cytoplasm Protein GFAP Magnetic Beads Construction and Application as Cell Separation Target for Brain Tumors

“…Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) refer to tumor cells that are found in the peripheral circulation or other body uids and are derived or detached from primary tumor sites [9]. As a promising liquid biopsy technique, detecting and analyzing CTCs is an ideal way of identifying the nature of tumors with a minimally invasive approach [10]. In the past ve years, CTCs detection has been widely used to diagnose and assess tumor progression in various malignant tumors, such as breast cancer, [11] lung cancer, [12] liver cancer, [13] prostate carcinoma [14] and, recently, brain tumors [15].…”