Prostate Cancer Xenograft Derived From Circulating Tumor Cells
Posted: Monday, July 9, 2018
A multinational team has created a prostate cancer xenograft derived from circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which may help in learning more about the disease and potential treatments for it. Led by Françoise Farace, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, the study team includes other French scientists as well as several from Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
This xenograft “represents a unique tool to identify clonal mutations associated with the tumor-initiating capacity of CTCs and explore the genetic and phenotypic basis of metastasis and drug resistance in advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer,” according to the researchers. Their study findings were presented at the 2018 American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting (Abstract 5600/3).
Dr. Farace and colleagues began with seven patients with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer. The patients’ tumors had been biopsied, and CTCs from leukapheresis products of the tumors were implanted into mice and then successive generations of mice.
Over time, wrote the researchers, they discovered that “only 2.8% (58 of 2,087) and 2.3% (49 of 2,087) of the mutations present in the tumor biopsies were identified in CTCs and the CTC-derived xenograft, respectively.” The identification of these mutations that may support the tumorigenic activity of CTCs, and the realization of their scarcity, may prove to play a major role in future research of prostate cancer treatments.
