Prostate cancer extracellular vesicle digital scoring assay - a rapid noninvasive approach for quantification of disease-relevant mRNAs.

Optimizing outcomes in prostate cancer (PCa) requires precision in characterization of disease status. This effort was directed at developing a PCa extracellular vesicle (EV) Digital Scoring Assay (DSA) for detecting metastasis and monitoring progression of PCa. PCa EV DSA is comprised of an EV purification device (i.e., EV Click Chip) and reverse-transcription droplet digital PCR that quantifies 11 PCa-relevant mRNA in purified PCa-derived EVs. A Met score was computed for each plasma sample based on the expression of the 11-gene panel using the weighted Z score method. Under optimized conditions, the EV Click Chips outperformed the ultracentrifugation or precipitation method of purifying PCa-derived EVs from artificial plasma samples. Using PCa EV DSA, the Met score distinguished metastatic (n = 20) from localized PCa (n = 20) with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.88 (95% CI:0.78-0.98). Furthermore, longitudinal analysis of three PCa patients showed the dynamics of the Met scores reflected clinical behavior even when disease was undetectable by imaging. Overall, a sensitive PCa EV DSA was developed to identify metastatic PCa and reveal dynamic disease states noninvasively. This assay may complement current imaging tools and blood-based tests for timely detection of metastatic progression that can improve care for PCa patients.

Loss of CDCP1 triggers FAK activation in detached prostate cancer cells.

A major metastasis suppressing mechanism is the rapid apoptotic death of cancer cells upon detachment from extracellular matrix, a process called anoikis. Focal adhesion kinase (PTK2/FAK) is a key enzyme involved in evasion of anoikis. We show that loss of the Cub-domain containing protein-1 (CDCP1), paradoxically stimulates FAK activation in the detached state of prostate cancer cells. In CDCP1low DU145 and PC3 prostate cancer cells, detachment-activation of FAK occurs through local production of PI(4,5)P2. PI(4,5)P2 is generated by the PIP5K1c-201 splicing isoform of PIP5K1c, which contains a unique SRC phosphorylation site. In the detached state, reduced expression of CDCP1 and an alternative CDCP1-independent SRC activation mechanism triggers PIP5K1c-pY644 phosphorylation by SRC. This causes a switch of Talin binding from ß1-integrin to PIP5K1c-pY644 and leads to activation of PIP5K1c-FAK. Reduced CDCP1 expression also inactivates CDK5, a negative regulator of PIP5K1c. Furthermore, immersion of prostate cancer cells in 10% human plasma or fetal bovine serum is required for activation of PIP5K1c-FAK. The PIP5K1c induced detachment-activation of FAK in preclinical models sensitizes CDCP1low prostate cancer cells to FAK inhibitors. In patients, CDCP1High versus CDCP1low circulating tumor cells differ in expression of AR-v7, ONECUT2 and HOXB13 oncogenes and TMPRSS2 and display intra-patient heterogeneity of FAK-pY397 expression. Taken together, CDCP1low and CDCP1high detached prostate cancer cells activate distinct cytoplasmic kinase complexes and targetable transcription factors, which has important therapeutic implications.

Covalent chemistry on nanostructured substrates enables noninvasive quantification of gene rearrangements in circulating tumor cells.

Well-preserved mRNA in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) offers an ideal material for conducting molecular profiling of tumors, thereby providing a noninvasive diagnostic solution for guiding treatment intervention and monitoring disease progression. However, it is technically challenging to purify CTCs while retaining high-quality mRNA.Here, we demonstrate a covalent chemistry-based nanostructured silicon substrate ("Click Chip") for CTC purification that leverages bioorthogonal ligation-mediated CTC capture and disulfide cleavage-driven CTC release. This platform is ideal for CTC mRNA assays because of its efficient, specific, and rapid purification of pooled CTCs, enabling downstream molecular quantification using reverse transcription Droplet Digital polymerase chain reaction. Rearrangements of ALK/ROS1 were quantified using CTC mRNA and matched with those identified in biopsy specimens from 12 patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Moreover, CTC counts and copy numbers of ALK/ROS1 rearrangements could be used together for evaluating treatment responses and disease progression.

Bio-Inspired NanoVilli Chips for Enhanced Capture of Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: Toward Non-Invasive Detection of Gene Alterations in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) present in bodily fluids are emerging liquid biopsy markers for non-invasive cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring. Because the majority of EVs in circulation are not of tumor origin, it is critical to develop new platforms capable of enriching tumor-derived EVs from the blood. Herein, we introduce a biostructure-inspired NanoVilli Chip, capable of highly efficient and reproducible immunoaffinity capture of tumor-derived EVs from blood plasma samples. Anti-EpCAM-grafted silicon nanowire arrays were engineered to mimic the distinctive structures of intestinal microvilli, dramatically increasing surface area and enhancing tumor-derived EV capture. RNA in the captured EVs can be recovered for downstream molecular analyses by reverse transcription Droplet Digital PCR. We demonstrate that this assay can be applied to monitor the dynamic changes of ROS1 rearrangements and epidermal growth factor receptor T790M mutations that predict treatment responses and disease progression in non-small cell lung cancer patients.

A Circulating Tumor Cell-RNA Assay for Assessment of Androgen Receptor Signaling Inhibitor Sensitivity in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer.

Rationale: Our objective was to develop a circulating tumor cell (CTC)-RNA assay for characterizing clinically relevant RNA signatures for the assessment of androgen receptor signaling inhibitor (ARSI) sensitivity in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients. Methods: We developed the NanoVelcro CTC-RNA assay by combining the Thermoresponsive (TR)-NanoVelcro CTC purification system with the NanoString nCounter platform for cellular purification and RNA analysis. Based on the well-validated, tissue-based Prostate Cancer Classification System (PCS), we focus on the most aggressive and ARSI-resistant PCS subtype, i.e., PCS1, for CTC analysis. We applied a rigorous bioinformatic process to develop the CTC-PCS1 panel that consists of prostate cancer (PCa) CTC-specific RNA signature with minimal expression in background white blood cells (WBCs). We validated the NanoVelcro CTC-RNA assay and the CTC-PCS1 panel with well-characterized PCa cell lines to demonstrate the sensitivity and dynamic range of the assay, as well as the specificity of the PCS1 Z score (the likelihood estimate of the PCS1 subtype) for identifying PCS1 subtype and ARSI resistance. We then selected 31 blood samples from 23 PCa patients receiving ARSIs to test in our assay. The PCS1 Z scores of each sample were computed and compared with ARSI treatment sensitivity. Results: The validation studies using PCa cell line samples showed that the NanoVelcro CTC-RNA assay can detect the RNA transcripts in the CTC-PCS1 panel with high sensitivity and linearity in the dynamic range of 5-100 cells. We also showed that the genes in CTC-PCS1 panel are highly expressed in PCa cell lines and lowly expressed in background WBCs. Using the artificial CTC samples simulating the blood sample conditions, we further demonstrated that the CTC-PCS1 panel is highly specific in identifying PCS1-like samples, and the high PCS1 Z score is associated with ARSI resistance samples. In patient bloods, ARSI-resistant samples (ARSI-R, n=14) had significantly higher PCS1 Z scores as compared with ARSI-sensitive samples (ARSI-S, n=17) (Rank-sum test, P=0.003). In the analysis of 8 patients who were initially sensitive to ARSI (ARSI-S) and later developed resistance (ARSI-R), we found that the PCS1 Z score increased from the time of ARSI-S to the time of ARSI-R (Pairwise T-test, P=0.016). Conclusions: Using our new methodology, we developed a first-in-class CTC-RNA assay and demonstrated the feasibility of transforming clinically-relevant tissue-based RNA profiling such as PCS into CTC tests. This approach allows for detecting RNA expression relevant to clinical drug resistance in a non-invasive fashion, which can facilitate patient-specific treatment selection and early detection of drug resistance, a goal in precision oncology.

Structure and function analysis in circulating tumor cells: using nanotechnology to study nuclear size in prostate cancer.

Professor Donald Coffey and his laboratory pioneered studies showing the relationships between nuclear shape and cellular function. In doing so, he and his students established the field of nuclear morphometry in prostate cancer. By using perioperative tissues via biopsies and surgical sampling, Dr. Coffey's team discovered that nuclear shape and other pathologic features correlated with clinical outcome measures. Cancer cells also exist outside of solid tumor masses as they can be shed from both primary and metastatic lesions into the circulatory system. The pool of these circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is heterogeneous. While some of these CTCs are passively shed into the circulation, others are active metastasizers with invasive potential. Advances in nanotechnology now make it possible to study morphologic features such as nuclear shape of CTCs in the bloodstream via liquid biopsy. Compared to traditional tissue sampling, liquid biopsy allows for minimally invasive, repetitive, and systemic disease sampling, which overcomes disease misrepresentation issues due to tumor temporospatial heterogeneity. Our team developed a novel liquid biopsy approach, the NanoVelcro assay, which allows us to identify morphologic heterogeneity in the CTC compartment. By applying classical methods of nuclear morphometry, we identified very small nuclear CTCs (vsnCTCs) in prostate cancer patients. Our initial studies showed that vsnCTCs strongly correlated with unfavorable clinical behaviors including the disposition to visceral metastases. These approaches may continue to yield additional insights into dynamic clinical behaviors, which creates an opportunity for more comprehensive and accurate cancer profiling. Ultimately, these advancements will allow physicians to employ more accurate and personalized treatments, helping the field reach the goal of true precision medicine.

NanoVelcro rare-cell assays for detection and characterization of circulating tumor cells.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cancer cells shredded from either a primary tumor or a metastatic site and circulate in the blood as the potential cellular origin of metastasis. By detecting and analyzing CTCs, we will be able to noninvasively monitor disease progression in individual cancer patients and obtain insightful information for assessing disease status, thus realizing the concept of "tumor liquid biopsy". However, it is technically challenging to identify CTCs in patient blood samples because of the extremely low abundance of CTCs among a large number of hematologic cells. In order to address this challenge, our research team at UCLA pioneered a unique concept of "NanoVelcro" cell-affinity substrates, in which CTC capture agent-coated nanostructured substrates were utilized to immobilize CTCs with remarkable efficiency. Four generations of NanoVelcro CTC assays have been developed over the past decade for a variety of clinical utilities. The 1st-gen NanoVelcro Chips, composed of a silicon nanowire substrate (SiNS) and an overlaid microfluidic chaotic mixer, were created for CTC enumeration. The 2nd-gen NanoVelcro Chips (i.e., NanoVelcro-LMD), based on polymer nanosubstrates, were developed for single-CTC isolation in conjunction with the use of the laser microdissection (LMD) technique. By grafting thermoresponsive polymer brushes onto SiNS, the 3rd-gen Thermoresponsive NanoVelcro Chips have demonstrated the capture and release of CTCs at 37 and 4 °C respectively, thereby allowing for rapid CTC purification while maintaining cell viability and molecular integrity. Fabricated with boronic acid-grafted conducting polymer-based nanomaterial on chip surface, the 4th-gen NanoVelcro Chips (Sweet chip) were able to purify CTCs with well-preserved RNA transcripts, which could be used for downstream analysis of several cancer specific RNA biomarkers. In this review article, we will summarize the development of the four generations of NanoVelcro CTC assays, and the clinical applications of each generation of devices.

Glycan Stimulation Enables Purification of Prostate Cancer Circulating Tumor Cells on PEDOT NanoVelcro Chips for RNA Biomarker Detection.

A glycan-stimulated and poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene)s (PEDOT)-based nanomaterial platform is fabricated to purify circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples of prostate cancer (PCa) patients. This new platform, phenylboronic acid (PBA)-grafted PEDOT NanoVelcro, combines the 3D PEDOT nanosubstrate, which greatly enhances CTC capturing efficiency, with a poly(EDOT-PBA-co-EDOT-EG3) interfacial layer, which not only provides high specificity for CTC capture upon antibody conjugation but also enables competitive binding of sorbitol to gently release the captured cells. CTCs purified by this PEDOT NanoVelcro chip provide well-preserved RNA transcripts for the analysis of the expression level of several PCa-specific RNA biomarkers, which may provide clinical insights into the disease.

Imprinted NanoVelcro Microchips for Isolation and Characterization of Circulating Fetal Trophoblasts: Toward Noninvasive Prenatal Diagnostics.

Circulating fetal nucleated cells (CFNCs) in maternal blood offer an ideal source of fetal genomic DNA for noninvasive prenatal diagnostics (NIPD). We developed a class of nanoVelcro microchips to effectively enrich a subcategory of CFNCs, i.e., circulating trophoblasts (cTBs) from maternal blood, which can then be isolated with single-cell resolution by a laser capture microdissection (LCM) technique for downstream genetic testing. We first established a nanoimprinting fabrication process to prepare the LCM-compatible nanoVelcro substrates. Using an optimized cTB-capture condition and an immunocytochemistry protocol, we were able to identify and isolate single cTBs (Hoechst+/CK7+/HLA-G+/CD45-, 20 µm > sizes > 12 µm) on the imprinted nanoVelcro microchips. Three cTBs were polled to ensure reproducible whole genome amplification on the cTB-derived DNA, paving the way for cTB-based array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) and short tandem repeats analysis. Using maternal blood samples collected from expectant mothers carrying a single fetus, the cTB-derived aCGH data were able to detect fetal genders and chromosomal aberrations, which had been confirmed by standard clinical practice. Our results support the use of nanoVelcro microchips for cTB-based noninvasive prenatal genetic testing, which holds potential for further development toward future NIPD solution.