Detection and Characterization of Rare Circulating Endothelial Cells by Imaging Flow Cytometry
Leigh Samsel1, J Philip McCoy2
1NHLBI Flow Cytometry Core Facility, NHLBI, NIH, Building 31, Room 5A52, MSC 2486, 31 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA.
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Circulating endothelial cells (CECs) are angiogenic cells that appear in increased numbers in the peripheral circulation either as a result of vascular injury or in response to angiogenic stimuli. Elevated levels of CECs have been correlated with various disease states, indicating the use of CECs as a biomarker of disease. Flow cytometry is a widely accepted method for detecting and quantitating CECs. Flow cytometry provides statistical information on large numbers of cells but no information on morphological characteristics. Imaging flow cytometry combines traditional flow cytometry and microscopy, providing a streamlined, multiparameter approach to characterize the biological properties and morphology of large numbers of cells, and is particularly amenable for rare event analysis such as CECs. This approach for identifying and characterizing CECs allows the morphological characterization of large numbers of live, nucleated, single CECs, and alleviates the need for prior enrichment.
