Androgen Receptor Variant 7 (AR-V7) Transcript Expression in Circulating Tumor Cells

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in developing drugs that increase the precision targeting of molecular alterations in prostate cancer cells. Traditionally, tissue samples are used to screen for and study such alterations, but liquid biopsies emerge as very practical and potentially superior methodologies to longitudinally characterize cancer cell biology and evolution. The expression of androgen receptor variants correlates with the development of castrate resistance prostate cancer (CRPC), and the most studied variant 7 (AR-V7) is associated with CRPC, disease progression, and resistance to certain AR-pathway targeted treatments and is readily detectable in circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Here, we describe a method of AR-V7 detection in CTCs using highly sensitive droplet digital PCR (ddPCR).