Insights into mechanisms of tumor dissemination from circulating tumor cell lines of small

Insights into mechanisms of tumor dissemination from circulating tumor cell lines of small cell lung

cancer

Gerhard Hamilton;Barbara Rath

【期刊名称】《癌症转移与治疗（英文版）》 【年(卷),期】2016(002)012

【摘要】Despite the fact that the majority of cancer patients succumb to metastatic disease, most aspects of tumor metastasis are not understood in detail at present. Cell biologic steps of dissemination are dififcult to characterize in human tumors and research is in large part conifned to cell line and experimental animal studies. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), intravasation of malignant cells, dissemination as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and eventually mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) at distal sites are steps believed to be involved in metastasis. Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is distinguished by early dissemination and excessive numbers of CTCs, which allowed for theex vivo expansion of six permanent CTC lines taken from relapsed patients. Cells exhibit an epithelial phenotype with partial EMT traits and are chemoresistant due to formation of large tumorospheres. Since cells may have invaded without undergoing EMT, the role of MET is uncertain. These SCLC CTC cell lines seem to represent the metastasis-inducing cancer cells; these are the minute