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Therapy

Using CTCs to test drug sensitivity

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 14, pages 576–577 (2014)Cite this article

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Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) have alterations that are reminiscent of the solid tumour from which they are shed, indicating that they could be used diagnostically and to monitor disease progression. Now, a team led by Shyamala Maheswaran and Daniel Haber have shown that some CTCs can be cultured in vitro and used to track the evolution of the primary tumour and to screen drugs to identify the most effective therapy.

Next, the authors assessed whether the CTC lines could form tumours in immunodeficient NSG mice. Three of the five CTC lines that were tested formed tumours, which shared features with matched patient tumours. Mutation analysis of primary tumours and CTC lines revealed that they share some genetic alterations, whereas the CTC lines had additional mutations that the metastatic tumour deposits had acquired during disease progression. One-half of the CTC lines had activating mutations in ESR1 (which encodes ERα), which have been reported to occur in patients treated with aromatase inhibitors for long periods of time, consistent with patient history. The authors also detected many other mutations that they were able to confirm from sequencing of CTC lines established from CTCs isolated from serial blood samples from patients during disease progression.

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References

  1. Yu, M. et al. Ex vivo culture of circulating breast tumor cells for individualized testing of drug susceptibility. Science 345 216–220 (2014)

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  1. Gemma K. Alderton
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Alderton, G. Using CTCs to test drug sensitivity. Nat Rev Cancer 14, 576–577 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3799

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