title: Tracking metastatic breast cancer: the future of biology in biosensors.
abstract: Circulating tumour cells associated with breast cancer (brCTCs) represent cells that have the capability to establish aggressive secondary metastatic tumours. The isolation and characterization of CTCs from blood in a single device is the future of oncology diagnosis and treatment. The methods of enrichment of CTCs have primarily utilized simple biological interactions with bimodal reporting with biased high purity and low numbers or low purity and high background. In this review, we will discuss the advances in microfluidics that has allowed the use of more complex selection criteria and biological methods to identify CTC populations. We will also discuss a potential new method of selection based on the response of the oncogenic DNA repair pathways within brCTCs. This method would allow insight into not only the oncogenic signalling at play but the chemoresistance mechanisms that could guide future therapeutic intervention at any stage of disease progression.
authors.affiliation: Translational Brain Cancer Research Laboratory, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, QLD, 4006, Australia.
authors.forename: Y C
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Herston, QLD, 4006, Australia. adrian.wiegmans@qimrberghofer.edu.au.
authors.forename: A P
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4059-5988
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Wiegmans
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000473:pathology*; D053903:DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded; D000071858:Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: C499379:EPCAM protein, human; D000071858:Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule
keywords: Circulating tumour cells; DNA damage response; EpCAM; Metastatic breast cancer; Microfluidics