title: Circulating tumor cells: approaches to isolation and characterization.
abstract: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) shed from primary and metastatic cancers are admixed with blood components and are thus rare, making their isolation and characterization a major technological challenge. CTCs hold the key to understanding the biology of metastasis and provide a biomarker to noninvasively measure the evolution of tumor genotypes during treatment and disease progression. Improvements in technologies to yield purer CTC populations amenable to better cellular and molecular characterization will enable a broad range of clinical applications, including early detection of disease and the discovery of biomarkers to predict treatment responses and disease progression.
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stott
authors.forename: Mehmet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Toner
authors.forename: Shyamala
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maheswaran
authors.forename: Daniel A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Haber
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000954:Antigens, Surface / Q000378:metabolism; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D000954:Antigens, Surface; D015415:Biomarkers