Prospective Monitoring of Circulating Epithelial Tumor Cells (CETC) Reveals Changes in Gene Expression During Adjuvant Radiotherapy of Breast Cancer Patients

Overview

Journal Curr Oncol

Publisher MDPI

Specialty Oncology

Date 2021 Sep 30

PMID 34590615

Citations 1

Authors

Matthias Maurer

Katharina Pachmann

Thomas Wendt

Dorothea Schott

Andrea Wittig

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Circulating epithelial tumor cells (CETC) are considered to be responsible for the formation of metastases. Therefore, their importance as prognostic and/or predictive markers in breast cancer is being intensively investigated. Here, the reliability of single cell expression analyses in isolated and collected CETC from whole blood samples of patients with early-stage breast cancer before and after radiotherapy (RT) using the maintrac method was investigated. Single-cell expression analyses were performed with qRT-PCR on a panel of selected genes: GAPDH, EpCAM, NANOG, Bcl-2, TLR 4, COX-2, PIK3CA, Her-2/neu, Vimentin, c-Met, Ki-67. In all patients, viable CETC were detected prior to and at the end of radiotherapy. In 7 of the 9 (77.8%) subjects examined, the CETC number at the end of the radiotherapy series was higher than before. The majority of genes analyzed showed increased expression after completion of radiotherapy compared to baseline. Procedures and methods used in this pilot study proved to be feasible. The method is suitable for further investigation of the underlying molecular biological mechanisms occurring in cells surviving radiotherapy and possibly the development of radiation resistance.

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Increased Circulating Epithelial Tumor Cells (CETC/CTC) over the Course of Adjuvant Radiotherapy Is a Predictor of Less Favorable Outcome in Patients with Early-Stage Breast Cancer.

Maurer M, Schott D, Pizon M, Drozdz S, Wendt T, Wittig A Curr Oncol. 2023; 30(1):261-273.

PMID: 36661670 PMC: 9857667. DOI: 10.3390/curroncol30010021.

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