Advances of In Vivo Flow Cytometry on Cancer Studies

Abstract

Cancer is a big threat to human life. Asia has about 60% of the global population and accounts for half of global cancer incidence and mortality. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been a good biomarker for cancer diagnosis, staging, and prognosis. Conventional detection methods of CTCs require drawing blood. It may disturb the biological environment and limited real‐time monitoring. in vivo flow cytometry (IVFC) is a burgeoning technique that allows noninvasive detection of CTCs in vivo. Here, we review the technical development of IVFC based on various contrast principles, including fluorescence IVFC, photoacoustic IVFC, imaging IVFC, and label‐free IVFC. This powerful tool has been applied widely in many areas of cancer‐related studies, especially the CTC studies. We review applications of IVFC in preclinical studies on prevalent cancers in Asia, including liver cancer, blood cancer, and so forth. Other cancer‐related studies in breast cancer, prostate cancer, cancer‐related stem cell research and drug studies are also reviewed. © 2019 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry

Measuring kinetics and metastatic propensity of CTCs by blood exchange between mice

“…Previous estimates of CTC half-life in the mouse circulation have varied from seconds 2,44 to minutes 14 to hours 45 using a variety of detection techniques. In clinical settings, these have relied on CTC detection rates in the hours following tumor resection surgery 45 , while pre-clinical animal models primarily have employed bolus injections of fluorescent tumor cell lines tracked by in-vivo flow cytometry (IVFC) 46,47 . Although longer half-life times of 30-60 minutes have been previously reported, the measurements were based on only a small fraction of the injected cell population, as the majority of these bulk-injected cells were cleared almost instantaneously 2,3 .…”

<p>Development and Clinical Prospects of Techniques to Separate Circulating Tumor Cells from Peripheral Blood</p>

“…71,72 At present, fluorescent and photoacoustic IVFC are the most widely used. 73 Fluorescent IVFC is approximately 1.8 times more sensitive than conventional whole blood flow cytometry. 72 This technique helps to identify the effects of other treatments, through fluorescence IVFC, as in case where sorafenib was revealed to reduce CTC count and lung metastasis in patients with advanced liver cancer.…”

Carbonic anhydrase IX as a novel candidate in liquid biopsy

“…The cont of CTCs is also useful in the treatment response process. The technics known as immunophenotypic identification of cytokeratin, enzymatic methods, and RT-qPCR (reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction) are used to detect CTCs [62][63][64][65][66] . The cell surface glycoprotein, EPCAM (Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule), which is highly expressed in epithelial cancer cells, serves as the primary antigen for CTCs detection.…”

“…Moreover, with this method, prognostic information can be obtained in metastatic breast, colon, and prostate cancers. CTCsare subjected to genomic mapping [62][63][64][65][66] , allowing a detailed analysis of the genes responsible for the uncontrolled growth of cells. Of course, the major drawbacks of this technique are (i) to distinguish cancer cells from millions of healthy cells; (ii) the detection of the kind of cancer.…”