Cultured circulating tumor cells and their derived xenografts for personalized oncology

AbstractRecent cancer research has demonstrated the existence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patient's blood. Once identified, CTC biomarkers will be invaluable tools for clinical diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. In this review, we propose ex vivo culture as a rational strategy for large scale amplification of the limited numbers of CTCs from a patient sample, to derive enough CTCs for accurate and reproducible characterization of the biophysical, biochemical, gene expressional and behavioral properties of the harvested cells. Because of tumor cell heterogeneity, it is important to amplify all the CTCs in a blood sample for a comprehensive understanding of their role in cancer metastasis. By analyzing critical steps and technical issues in ex vivo CTC culture, we developed a cost-effective and reproducible protocol directly culturing whole peripheral blood mononuclear cells, relying on an assumed survival advantage in CTCs and CTC-like cells over the normal cells to amplify this specified cluster of cancer cells

Cultured circulating tumor cells and their derived xenografts for personalized oncology.

Recent cancer research has demonstrated the existence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patient's blood. Once identified, CTC biomarkers will be invaluable tools for clinical diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. In this review, we propose ex vivo culture as a rational strategy for large scale amplification of the limited numbers of CTCs from a patient sample, to derive enough CTCs for accurate and reproducible characterization of the biophysical, biochemical, gene expressional and behavioral properties of the harvested cells. Because of tumor cell heterogeneity, it is important to amplify all the CTCs in a blood sample for a comprehensive understanding of their role in cancer metastasis. By analyzing critical steps and technical issues in ex vivo CTC culture, we developed a cost-effective and reproducible protocol directly culturing whole peripheral blood mononuclear cells, relying on an assumed survival advantage in CTCs and CTC-like cells over the normal cells to amplify this specified cluster of cancer cells

Fine-tuning pulse reverse electrodeposition for enhanced photoelectrochemical water oxidation performance of ??-Fe2O3 photoanodes

High-quality hematite (??-Fe2O3) photoanodes were synthesized from a sulfate electrolyte bath by the pulse reverse electrodeposition (PRED) method. The influence of PRED parameters (viz. duty cycle, pulse period, and deposition time) was systematically investigated on the structural, optical, morphological, and photoelectrochemical properties of the films. The optimized parameters of pulse duty cycle, pulse period, and the deposition time were 20%, 10 ms, and 45 s, respectively. The granular and compact nanocrystalline morphology of the ??-Fe2O3 was found to alter according to the process parameters. The ??-Fe2O3 electrodes (film thickness ???200 nm) prepared by annealing at 550 ??C for 4 h followed by 800 ??C for 15 min exhibited an optimum photocurrent density of 504 ??A cm-2 measured at 1.23 V vs RHE in 1 M NaOH electrolyte under 100 mW cm-2 light illumination.close3