title: Unreliability of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in detecting contaminating breast cancer cells in peripheral blood stem cells due to induction of CEA by growth factors.
abstract: RT-PCR is increasingly used for the detection of minimal residual disease in solid tumors. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) RT-PCR seemed to be highly specific for detection of tumor cells when tested on PBMC. A very high frequency of RT-PCR amplification product for CEA in PBSC from breast cancer patients mobilized with G-CSF was found. However, this result contrasted with tumor cell detection by immunocytochemistry (ICC) which showed no correlation with RT-PCR results. In addition, CEA mRNA was amplified in most G-CSF-mobilized PBSC samples derived from patients with hematological malignancies and from healthy donors of allogeneic stem cells, although no circulating epithelial cells could be demonstrated by ICC. CEA RT-PCR expression was observed in PBMC from healthy individuals incubated in vitro with G-CSF. These data suggest that CEA transcription can be induced by G-CSF, resulting in a loss of specificity of CEA RT-PCR for tumor cell detection in PBMC. We conclude, CEA RT-PCR may not be recommended to detect tumor cell contamination in peripheral blood from patients treated with G-CSF. This may have implications on tumor cell detection by RT-PCR in tissues where endogenous or exogenous growth factors may induce the transcription of CEA or other genes.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Oncology and Hematology, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Goeminne
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Guillaume
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salmon
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Machiels
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: D'Hondt
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Symann
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000473:pathology; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics*; D016179:Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor / Q000378:metabolism; D006133:Growth Substances / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007937:Leukapheresis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen; D006133:Growth Substances; D016179:Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor