Liquid biopsy of tumor through isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) allows non-invasive, repetitive, and systemic sampling of disease. Although detecting and enumerating CTCs is of prognostic significance in metastatic cancer, it is conceivable that performing molecular and functional characterization on CTCs will reveal unprecedented insight into the pathogenic mechanisms driving lethal disease. Nanomaterial-embedded cancer diagnostic platforms, i.e., NanoVelcro CTC Assays represent a unique rare-cell sorting method that enables detection isolation, and characterization of CTCs in peripheral blood, providing an opportunity to noninvasively monitor disease progression in individual cancer patients. Over the past decade, a series of NanoVelcro CTC Assays has been demonstrated for exploring the full potential of CTCs as a clinical biomarker, including CTC enumeration, phenotyping, genotyping and expression profiling. In this review article, the authors will briefly introduce the development of three generations of NanoVelcro CTC Assays, and highlight the clinical applications of each generation for various types of solid cancers, including prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma.
Theranostics. 2016 Jun 15*** epublish ***
Jie-Fu Chen, Yazhen Zhu, Yi-Tsung Lu, Elisabeth Hodara, Shuang Hou, Vatche G Agopian, James S Tomlinson, Edwin M Posadas, Hsian-Rong Tseng
1. Urologic Oncology Program and Uro-Oncology Research Laboratories, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA;, 2. Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, California NanoSystems Institute, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA;; 3. Department of Pathology, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of TCM, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China., 1. Urologic Oncology Program and Uro-Oncology Research Laboratories, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA;, 1. Urologic Oncology Program and Uro-Oncology Research Laboratories, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA;, 3. Department of Pathology, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of TCM, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China., 4. Department of Surgery, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA;; 5. Liver Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA;, 4. Department of Surgery, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA;; 6. Center for Pancreatic Disease, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA;; 7. Department of Surgery Greater Los Angeles Veteran's Affairs Administration, Los Angeles, California, USA., 1. Urologic Oncology Program and Uro-Oncology Research Laboratories, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA;, 2. Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, California NanoSystems Institute, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA;