Efficient Propagation of Circulating Tumor Cells: A First Step for Probing Tumor Metastasis

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) represent a unique population of cells that can be used to investigate the mechanistic underpinnings of metastasis. Unfortunately, current technologies designed for the isolation and capture of CTCs are inefficient. Existing literature for in vitro CTC cultures report low (6-20%) success rates. Here, we describe a new method for the isolation and culture of CTCs. Once optimized, we employed the method on 12 individual metastatic breast cancer patients and successfully established CTC cultures from all 12 samples. We demonstrate that cells propagated were of breast and epithelial origin. RNA-sequencing and pathway analysis demonstrated that CTC cultures were distinct from cells obtained from healthy donors. Finally, we observed that CTC cultures that were associated with CD45⁺ leukocytes demonstrated higher viability. The presence of CD45⁺ leukocytes significantly enhanced culture survival and suggests a re-evaluation of the methods for CTC isolation and propagation. Routine access to CTCs is a valuable resource for identifying genetic and molecular markers of metastasis, personalizing the treatment of metastatic cancer patients and developing new therapeutics to selectively target metastatic cells.