Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Breast Cancer Cells in Patient Blood with Nuclease-Activated Probe Technology.

ABSTRACT: A challenge for circulating tumor cell (CTC)-based diagnostics is the development of simple and inexpensive methods that reliably detect the diverse cells that make up CTCs. CTC-derived nucleases are one category of proteins that could be exploited to meet this challenge. Advantages of nucleases as CTC biomarkers include: (1) their elevated expression in many cancer cells, including cells implicated in metastasis that have undergone epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; and (2) their enzymatic activity, which can be exploited for signal amplification in detection methods. Here, we describe a diagnostic assay based on quenched fluorescent nucleic acid probes that detect breast cancer CTCs via their nuclease activity. This assay exhibited robust performance in distinguishing breast cancer pa

SUBMITTER: Kruspe S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5577414 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature