Morphological differences between circulating tumor cells from prostate cancer patients and cultured prostate cancer cells

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 1; p. e85264
• Main Authors: Park, Sunyoung, Ang, Richard R, Duffy, Simon P, Bazov, Jenny, Chi, Kim N, Black, Peter C, Ma, Hongshen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 08-01-2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antigens; Biology; Biomarkers, Tumor - analysis; Biomechanics; Bone marrow; Breast cancer; Cancer; Cancer cells; Cancer metastasis; Cell Count; Cell culture; Cell Nucleus - ultrastructure; Cell Separation - instrumentation; Cell Separation - methods; Cell surface; Cytoplasm - ultrastructure; Elongation; Engineering; Enumeration; Ethics; Humans; Male; Mechanical engineering; Medical research; Medicine; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Monte Carlo simulation; Morphology; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - pathology; Neoplastic Cells, Circulating - ultrastructure; Organ Specificity; Patients; Prognosis; Prostate; Prostate cancer; Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant - diagnosis; Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant - pathology; Prostatic Neoplasms, Castration-Resistant - ultrastructure; Software; Software development tools; Surface antigens; Tumor cells; Tumor Cells, Cultured - pathology; Tumor Cells, Cultured - ultrastructure; Vancouver British Columbia Canada; Canada
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085264

Circulating tumor cell (CTC) enumeration promises to be an important predictor of clinical outcome for a range of cancers. Established CTC enumeration methods primarily rely on affinity capture of cell surface antigens, and have been criticized for underestimation of CTC numbers due to antigenic bias. Emerging CTC capture strategies typically distinguish these cells based on their assumed biomechanical characteristics, which are often validated using cultured cancer cells. In this study, we developed a software tool to investigate the morphological properties of CTCs from patients with castrate resistant prostate cancer and cultured prostate cancer cells in order to establish whether the latter is an appropriate model for the former. We isolated both CTCs and cultured cancer cells from whole blood using the CellSearch® system and examined various cytomorphological characteristics. In contrast with cultured cancer cells, CTCs enriched by CellSearch® system were found to have significantly smaller size, larger nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio, and more elongated shape. These CTCs were also found to exhibit significantly more variability than cultured cancer cells in nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio and shape profile.