Capture of Heterogeneous Circulating Tumor Cells in Colorectal Cancer Patients on an Immunomagnetic and Anti-Nonspecific Adsorption Platform.

Circulating tumor cells (CTC) have been represented by different phenotypes due to the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which are epithelial CTC (E-CTC), mesenchymal CTC (M-CTC), and mixed (epithelial, mesenchymal) CTC (EM-CTC). Limited work has systematically discussed the associations of CTC number, especially proportions of E-CTC, M-CTC, and EM-CTC in total CTC, with colorectal cancer (CRC) progressions via a simple method with high performances. To achieve this goal, this paper presents the fabrication of a novel anti-nonspecific adsorption immunomagnetic platform called Fe3O4@SiO2@PTMAO@Aptamer, which was obtained by modifying polymeric trimethylamine N-oxide (PTMAO) on magnetic Fe3O4@SiO2, which was then linked with dual aptamers of an epithelial cellular adhesion molecule (EpCAM) and cell surface vimentin (CSV), targeting different CTC phenotypes. Results demonstrated that the abundant coating of PTMAO on Fe3O4@SiO2 improved the anti-nonspecific adsorption and noncell adhesion abilities of the immunomagnetic particles and could capture heterogeneous CTC with higher efficiency within 10 min. These excellent performances of Fe3O4@SiO2@PTMAO@Aptamer allowed us to inspect the correlations of numbers of E-CTC, M-CTC, EM-CTC, or proportions of them in total CTC with clinical information on CRC patients in detail. Our data innovatively and clearly revealed that the captured CTC, especially M-CTC proportion, displayed more close associations with progression, diagnosis, surgery, and chemotherapeutic effects for CRC patients. Overall, we believe that our approach will bring a new understanding of CTC-based liquid biopsy for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Targeting the ILK/YAP axis by LFG-500 blocks epithelial-mesenchymal transition and metastasis.

Metastasis is the main cause of mortality in patients with cancer. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a crucial process in cancer metastasis, is an established target for antimetastatic drug development. LFG-500, a novel synthetic flavonoid, has been revealed as a potential antitumor agent owing to its various activities, including modulation of EMT in the inflammatory microenvironment. Here, using a transforming growth factor beta (TGF-ß)-induced EMT models, we found that LFG-500 inhibited EMT-associated migration and invasion in human breast cancer, MCF-7, and lung adenocarcinoma, A549, cell lines, consistent with the observed downregulation of YAP activity. Further studies demonstrated that LGF-500-induced suppression of YAP activation was mediated by integrin-linked kinase (ILK), suggesting that the ILK/YAP axis might be feasible target for anti-EMT and antimetastatic treatments, which was verified by a correlation analysis with clinical data and tumor specimens. Hence, our data support the use of LGF-500 as an antimetastatic drug in cancer therapy and provide evidence that the ILK/YAP axis is a feasible biomarker of cancer progression and a promising target for repression of EMT and metastasis in cancer therapy.

N-3, a novel synthetic derivative of bifendate, inhibits metastasis of triple-negative breast cancer via decreasing p38-regulated FOXC1 protein stability.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive breast cancer subtype with high invasiveness, metastatic potential, and poor prognosis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is pivotal in TNBC progression, becoming a promising target for TNBC treatment. Our study evaluated N-3, a novel synthetic bifendate derivative, which inhibited the EMT-associated migration and invasion of MDA-MB-231 and 4T1 TNBC cells. The results were consistent with the suppression of FOXC1 expression and transcriptional activity. Additional studies indicated that N-3 reduced the protein stability of FOXC1 by enhancing ubiquitination and degradation. Moreover, N-3 downregulated p-p38 expression and FOXC1 interaction, decreasing the stability of p38-regulated FOXC1. Further, N-3 blocked TNBC metastasis with an artificial lung metastasis model in vivo, related to FOXC1 suppression and EMT. These results highlight the potential of N-3 as a TNBC metastasis treatment. Therefore, FOXC1 regulation could be a novel targeted therapeutic strategy for TNBC metastasis.

Dual-Aptamer-Targeted Immunomagnetic Nanoparticles to Accurately Explore the Correlations between Circulating Tumor Cells and Gastric Cancer.

It has been acknowledged that circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are promising biomarkers in liquid biopsy for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. However, the relationship between the CTC number and gastric cancer has scarcely been quantitatively investigated. Moreover, the single criterion of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) antibody/aptamer to specifically recognize epithelial CTCs cannot be universally applied for clinical applications, as it fails to recognize EpCAM-negative CTCs. Herein, we propose simple, low-cost, dual-aptamer (EpCAM and PTK7)-modified immunomagnetic Fe3O4 particles (IMNs) for efficient capture of heterogeneous CTCs and downstream analysis in gastric cancer patients. High PTK7 expression and a significant negative correlation between PTK7 and EpCAM expression were observed in primary gastric cancer tissues. Taking MGC-803 and BGC-823 cells as CTC models, the obtained dual-targeting IMNs could distinguishably recognize these cells with both high or low EpCAM and PTK7 expressions, which enhanced the accuracy of CTC recognition in gastric cancer. More than 95% of these two kinds of cells could be captured within 20 min of incubation, which was significantly more efficient than that of single EpCAM- or PTK7-modified IMNs. With this strategy, as low as five CTCs could be captured from phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), a cell mixture containing THP-1 cells, and lysed blood mediums. Moreover, the obtained CTCs can be used for subsequent gene analysis. Finally, the fabricated IMNs were successfully applied for CTC capture in 1.0 mL of peripheral blood samples from patients with gastric cancer. The detected CTC numbers in 72 participants were found to have close relationships with chemotherapy sensitivity, diagnosis, stage, and distant metastasis of patients. This work provides important references for further investigations on CTC-related diagnosis and individualized treatment.