%0 Journal Article
%T Mesenchymal and stemness circulating tumor cells in early breast cancer diagnosis
%A Guislaine Barri¨¨re
%A Alain Riouallon
%A JoŁżl Renaudie
%A Michel Tartary
%A Michel Rigaud
%J BMC Cancer
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2407-12-114
%X AdnaGen method was used for enrichment cell selection. Then, ddCTC were characterized by RT-PCR study of the following genes: PI3K¦Á, Akt-2, Twist1 (EMT markers) and ALDH1, Bmi1 and CD44 (stemness indicators).Among the studied primary breast cancer cohort, presence of ddCTC was detected in 39% of cases. This positivity is independant from tumor clinicopathological factors apart from the lymph node status.Our data uniquely demonstrated that in vivo EMT occurs in the primary tumors and is associated with an enhanced ability of tumor cells to intravasate in the early phase of cancer disease. These results suggest that analysis of circulating tumor cells focused on cells showing mesenchymal or stemness characteristics might facilitate assessment of new drugs in clinical trials.Many trials are currently focusing on circulating tumor cells (CTC) in peripheral blood and publications have described association of CTC with worse prognosis [1]. The term CTC encompasses all types of cells which are considered as foreign entities in the blood having some cancerous characters. Often, in this whole population, cells with tumorigenic potential are not detected. Results are essentially supported by cell counting data arising from CellSearch (Veridex, Raritan, NJ). This method has been cleared by FDA but is not endorsed, like others, by ASCO recommendations. Recent studies have suggested that CellSearch technique may underestimate the number of CTC [2]. Blood intravasation of cancer cells from a primary breast carcinoma is an early event, leading to metastasis [3,4]. Klein et al proposed a parallel progression between early primary tumor and dissemination of tumor cells [5]. Evidence has emerged that CTC present a heterogeneity as the one described for primary tumors. Subpopulations of CTC: cancer stem cells, tumor amplifying cells (i.e progenitors) and tumor initiating cells arise from epithelial cancer cells of the primary tumor undergoing epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) pr
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/12/114