Anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule antibodies and the detection of circulating normal-like breast tumor cells.

ABSTRACT: Identification of specific subtypes of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood of cancer patients can provide information about the biology of metastasis and improve patient management. However, to be effective, the method used to identify circulating tumor cells must detect all tumor cell types. We investigated whether the five subtypes of human breast cancer cells that have been defined by global gene expression profiling-normal-like, basal, HER2-positive, and luminal A and B-were identified by CellSearch, a US Food and Drug Administration-approved test that uses antibodies against the cell surface-expressed epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) to isolate circulating tumor cells. We used global gene expression profiling to determine the subtypes of a well-defined panel of 34 hum

SUBMITTER: Sieuwerts AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2639293 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature