Live single cell mass spectrometry reveals cancer‐specific metabolic profiles of circulating tumor cells

TLDR

Circulating tumor cells, released from primary tumors into the bloodstream, hold promise for cancer diagnosis and treatment but are scarce and difficult to analyze with current methods that lack sensitivity, specificity, or reproducibility. The study aims to perform untargeted molecular profiling of single CTCs from gastric and colorectal cancer patients using live single‑cell mass spectrometry combined with microfluidic enrichment. The authors employed live single‑cell mass spectrometry linked to microfluidic enrichment to isolate and analyze individual CTCs. They found distinct metabolomic signatures between gastric and colorectal CTCs and identified putative biomarkers specific to each cancer type.

Abstract

Recently, there has been increased attention on the analysis of circulating tumor cells ( CTC s), also known as liquid biopsy, owing to its potential benefits in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Circulating tumor cells are released from primary tumor lesions into the blood stream and eventually metastasize to distant body organs. However, a major hurdle with CTC analysis is their natural scarcity. Existing methods lack sensitivity, specificity, or reproducibility required in CTC characterization and detection. Here, we report untargeted molecular profiling of single CTC s obtained from gastric cancer and colorectal cancer patients, using live single cell mass spectrometry integrated with microfluidics‐based cell enrichment techniques. Using this approach, we showed the difference in the metabolomic profile between CTC s originating from different cancer groups. Moreover, potential biomarkers were putatively annotated to be specific to each cancer type.