title: Nanomechanical biomarkers of single circulating tumor cells for detection of castration resistant prostate cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Emerging evidence shows that nanomechanical phenotypes of circulating tumor cells (CTC) could become potential biomarkers for metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).
  
  
  METHODS
  To determine the nanomechanical phenotypes of CTCs we applied atomic force microscopy (AFM) employing the PeakForce quantitative nanomechanical (QNM) imaging. We assessed biophysical parameters (elasticity, deformation, and adhesion) of 130 CTCs isolated from blood samples from five castration sensitive (CS) and 12 castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPCa) patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that CTCs from CRPCa patients are three times softer, three times more deformable, and seven times more adhesive than counterparts from CSPCa patients. Both nonsupervised hierarchical clustering and principle component analysis show that three combined nanomechanical parameters could constitute a valuable set to distinguish between CSPCa and CRPCa.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  [corrected] Our study indicates that nanomechanical phenotypes of CTCs may serve as novel and effective biomarkers for mCRPC.
authors: Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas.
authors: Pawel
authors: P
authors: Osmulski
authors: Devalingam
authors: D
authors: Mahalingam
authors: Maria E
authors: ME
authors: Gaczynska
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Liu
authors: Susan
authors: S
authors: Huang
authors: Aaron M
authors: AM
authors: Horning
authors: Chiou-Miin
authors: CM
authors: Wang
authors: Ian M
authors: IM
authors: Thompson
authors: Tim H-M
authors: TH
authors: Huang
authors: Chun-Liang
authors: CL
authors: Chen
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D002452:Cell Count; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D064129:Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor
keywords: adhesion; biophysical biomarkers; deformability; elasticity; single-cell analysis