Deciphering the Biology of Circulating Tumor Cells through Single-Cell RNA Sequencing: Implications for Precision Medicine in Cancer

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) hold unique biological characteristics that directly involve them in hematogenous dissemination. Studying CTCs systematically is technically challenging due to their extreme rarity and heterogeneity and the lack of specific markers to specify metastasis-initiating CTCs. With cutting-edge technology, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) provides insights into the biology of metastatic processes driven by CTCs. Transcriptomics analysis of single CTCs can decipher tumor heterogeneity and phenotypic plasticity for exploring promising novel therapeutic targets. The integrated approach provides a perspective on the mechanisms underlying tumor development and interrogates CTCs interactions with other blood cell types, particularly those of the immune system. This review aims to comprehensively describe the current study on CTC transcriptomic analysis through scRNA-seq technology. We emphasize the workflow for scRNA-seq analysis of CTCs, including enrichment, single cell isolation, and bioinformatic tools applied for this purpose. Furthermore, we elucidated the translational knowledge from the transcriptomic profile of individual CTCs and the biology of cancer metastasis for developing effective therapeutics through targeting key pathways in CTCs.

Automated summary

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play a crucial role in hematogenous dissemination and studying them is challenging due to their rarity and heterogeneity. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology provides insights into CTC biology and helps identify potential therapeutic targets. This review comprehensively describes the current research on transcriptomic analysis of CTCs using scRNA-seq and highlights the workflow and bioinformatic tools involved.