Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)

Editor

Personal info

View

About

Terms

Javascript disabled

Please enable Javascript support in your browser to use this application.

Instructions on how to enable JavaScript on different browsers can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23852.

[edit this page]

Baker, M.K. et al.

Molecular detection of breast cancer cells in the peripheral blood of advanced-stage breast cancer patients using multimarker real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and a novel porous barrier density gradient centrifugation technology.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to develop a molecular diagnostic assay to detect circulating breast cancer cells in the peripheral blood for the purpose of staging breast cancer. Our aim was to make available an assay that was not limited by the low concentration of circulating breast cancer cells and the background gene expression that is typically found in peripheral blood. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: In this study, we investigated the ability of two new technologies to significantly enhance the quantification of gene expression in the peripheral blood: enrichment by a novel porous barrier density gradient centrifugation technology; and multimarker real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR). RESULTS: Using fluorescence-labeled breast cancer cells and flow cytometry, we show that processing peripheral blood by porous barrier density gradient centrifugation results in a 300-fold enrichment of breast cancer cells. Real-time RT-PCR analysis confirmed a concomitant reduction in background expression of the CK19 and MUC1 genes after enrichment. In a pilot study, porous barrier density gradient centrifugation and multimarker real-time RT-PCR enabled our laboratory to detect breast cancer-associated gene overexpression in 13 of 20 (65%) stage IV breast cancer patients. Nine of these 14 patients overexpressed three or more markers. CONCLUSIONS: These results confirm the promise of such a molecular diagnostic assay and suggest that additional studies are needed to precisely define the clinical relevance.[1]

References

Molecular detection of breast cancer cells in the peripheral blood of advanced-stage breast cancer patients using multimarker real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and a novel porous barrier density gradient centrifugation technology. Baker, M.K., Mikhitarian, K., Osta, W., Callahan, K., Hoda, R., Brescia, F., Kneuper-Hall, R., Mitas, M., Cole, D.J., Gillanders, W.E. Clin. Cancer Res. (2003) [Pubmed]

Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenes Open Access Licence Privacy Policy Terms of Use apsburg

The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.