Molecular Characterization of Circulating Tumor Cells Enriched by A Microfluidic Platform in Patients with Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Overview

Journal Cells

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Biochemistry
Biophysics
Cell Biology
Molecular Biology

Date 2019 Aug 16

PMID 31412616

Citations 22

Authors

Eva Obermayr

Christiane Agreiter

Eva Schuster

Hannah Fabikan

Christoph Weinlinger

Katarina Baluchova

Gerhard Hamilton

Maximilian Hochmair

Robert Zeillinger

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

At initial diagnosis, most patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) present with metastatic disease with a high number of tumor cells (CTCs) circulating in the blood. We analyzed RNA transcripts specific for neuroendocrine and for epithelial cell lineages, and Notch pathway delta-like 3 ligand (), the actionable target of rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T) in CTC samples. Peripheral blood samples from 48 SCLC patients were processed using the microfluidic Parsortix™ technology to enrich the CTCs. Blood samples from 26 healthy donors processed in the same way served as negative controls. The isolated cells were analyzed for the presence of above-mentioned transcripts using quantitative PCR. In total, 16/51 (31.4%) samples were CTC-positive as determined by the expression of epithelial cell adhesion molecule 1 (, cytokeratin 19 (, chromogranin A (, and/or synaptophysis (. The epithelial cell lineage-specific and/or gene expression was observed in 11 (21.6%) samples, and positivity was not associated with impaired survival. The neuroendocrine cell lineage-specific and/or were positive in 13 (25.5%) samples, and positivity was associated with poor overall survival. transcripts were observed in four (7.8%) SCLC blood samples and -positivity was similarly associated with poor overall survival (OS). CTCs in SCLC patients can be assessed using epithelial and neuroendocrine cell lineage markers at the molecular level. Thus, the implementation of liquid biopsy may improve the management of lung cancer patients, in terms of a faster diagnosis, patient stratification, and on-treatment therapy monitoring.

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