Single-cell+analyses+of+circulating+tumor+cells.pdfVIP

Cancer Biol Med 2015;12:184-192. doi: 10.7497/j.issn.2095-3941.2015.0056 REVIEW Single-cell analyses of circulating tumor cells Xi-Xi Chen, Fan Bai Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center, School of Life Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China ABSTRACT Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a population of tumor cells mediating metastasis, which results in most of the cancer related deaths. The number of CTCs in the peripheral blood of patients is rare, and many platforms have been launched for detection and enrichment of CTCs. Enumeration of CTCs has already been used as a prognosis marker predicting the survival rate of cancer patients. Yet CTCs should be more potential. Studies on CTCs at single cell level may help revealing the underlying mechanism of tumorigenesis and metastasis. Though far from developed, this area of study holds much promise in providing new clinical application and deep understanding towards metastasis and cancer development. KEYWORDS Circulating tumor cells (CTCs); single cell sequencing; metastasis Introduction When metastasis initiates, the tumor cells in the primary site proliferate, thereby attracting blood vessels to provide Most cancer-related deaths are caused by metastasis. The nutrients and oxygen for tumor growth while giving the 2 presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in peripheral blood tumor cells a chance to invade the blood vessels