Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
Volume 23, Issue 16, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijms23169475
Keywords
breast cancer; metastasis; circulating tumor cells; apoptosis
Funding
- Russian Science Foundation [19-75-30016]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study investigated the association between different apoptotic states of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in breast cancer patients and treatment outcomes. The results showed that the proportion of CTCs with early apoptosis features can serve as a prognostic indicator for metastasis-free survival and is associated with the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Stemness and epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity are widely studied in the circulating tumor cells of breast cancer patients because the roles of both processes in tumor progression are well established. An important property that should be taken into account is the ability of CTCs to disseminate, particularly the viability and apoptotic states of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Recent data demonstrate that apoptosis reversal promotes the formation of stem-like tumor cells with pronounced potential for dissemination. Our study focused on the association between different apoptotic states of CTCs with short- and long-term treatment outcomes. We evaluated the association of viable CTCs, CTCs with early features of apoptosis, and end-stage apoptosis/necrosis CTCs with clinicopathological parameters of breast cancer patients. We found that the proportion of circulating tumor cells with features of early apoptosis is a perspective prognosticator of metastasis-free survival, which also correlates with the neoadjuvant chemotherapy response in breast cancer patients. Moreover, we establish that apoptotic CTCs are associated with the poor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and metastasis-free survival expressed at least two stemness markers, CD44 and CD133.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available