The biology of circulating tumor cells

TY - JOUR

T1 - The biology of circulating tumor cells

AU - Pantel, K

AU - Speicher, M R

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Metastasis is a biologically complex process consisting of numerous stochastic events which may tremendously differ across various cancer types. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that are shed from primary tumors and metastatic deposits into the blood stream. CTCs bear a tremendous potential to improve our understanding of steps involved in the metastatic cascade, starting from intravasation of tumor cells into the circulation until the formation of clinically detectable metastasis. These efforts were propelled by novel high-resolution approaches to dissect the genomes and transcriptomes of CTCs. Furthermore, capturing of viable CTCs has paved the way for innovative culturing technologies to study fundamental characteristics of CTCs such as invasiveness, their kinetics and responses to selection barriers, such as given therapies. Hence the study of CTCs is not only instrumental as a basic research tool, but also allows the serial monitoring of tumor genotypes and may therefore provide predictive and prognostic biomarkers for clinicians. Here, we review how CTCs have contributed to significant insights into the metastatic process and how they may be utilized in clinical practice.Oncogene advance online publication, 8 June 2015; doi:10.1038/onc.2015.192.

AB - Metastasis is a biologically complex process consisting of numerous stochastic events which may tremendously differ across various cancer types. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that are shed from primary tumors and metastatic deposits into the blood stream. CTCs bear a tremendous potential to improve our understanding of steps involved in the metastatic cascade, starting from intravasation of tumor cells into the circulation until the formation of clinically detectable metastasis. These efforts were propelled by novel high-resolution approaches to dissect the genomes and transcriptomes of CTCs. Furthermore, capturing of viable CTCs has paved the way for innovative culturing technologies to study fundamental characteristics of CTCs such as invasiveness, their kinetics and responses to selection barriers, such as given therapies. Hence the study of CTCs is not only instrumental as a basic research tool, but also allows the serial monitoring of tumor genotypes and may therefore provide predictive and prognostic biomarkers for clinicians. Here, we review how CTCs have contributed to significant insights into the metastatic process and how they may be utilized in clinical practice.Oncogene advance online publication, 8 June 2015; doi:10.1038/onc.2015.192.

U2 - 10.1038/onc.2015.192

DO - 10.1038/onc.2015.192

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 26050619

VL - 35

SP - 1216

EP - 1224

JO - ONCOGENE

JF - ONCOGENE

SN - 0950-9232

IS - 10

ER -