Analysis of circulating tumour cells in early-stage uveal melanoma: Evaluation of tumour marker expression to increase capture

Authors

Aaron B. Beasley, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Timothy W. Isaacs
Tersia Vermeulen
James Freeman, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Jean-Louis De Sousa
Riyaz Bhikoo
Doireann Hennessy
Anna Reid, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Fred K. Chen
Jacqueline Bentel
Daniel McKay
R. Max Conway
Michelle R. Pereira, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Bob Mirzai
Leslie Calapre, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Wendy N. Erber
Melanie R. Ziman, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Elin S. Gray, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Cancers

Volume

13

Issue

23

Publisher

MDPI

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences / Centre for Precision Health

RAS ID

40564

Funders

Edith Cowan University

Cancer Council of Western Australia

National Health and Medical Research Council

Raine Medical Research Foundation

Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia

Grant Number

NHMRC Number : MRF1142962

Comments

Beasley, A. B., Isaacs, T. W., Vermeulen, T., Freeman, J., DeSousa, J. L., Bhikoo, R., . . . Gray, E. S. (2021). Analysis of circulating tumour cells in early-stage uveal melanoma: Evaluation of tumour marker expression to increase capture. Cancers, 13(23), article 5990.

https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13235990

Abstract

Background:

The stratification of uveal melanoma (UM) patients into prognostic groups is critical for patient management and for directing patients towards clinical trials. Current classification is based on clinicopathological and molecular features of the tumour. Analysis of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) has been proposed as a tool to avoid invasive biopsy of the primary tumour. However, the clinical utility of such liquid biopsy depends on the detection rate of CTCs.

Methods:

The expression of melanoma, melanocyte, and stem cell markers was tested in a primary tissue microarray (TMA) and UM cell lines. Markers found to be highly expressed in primary UM were used to either immunomagnetically isolate or immunostain UM CTCs prior to treatment of the primary lesion. (3)

Results:

TMA and cell lines had heterogeneous expression of common melanoma, melanocyte, and stem cell markers. A multi-marker panel of immunomagnetic beads enabled isolation of CTCs in 37/43 (86%) patients with UM. Detection of three or more CTCs using the multi-marker panel, but not MCSP alone, was a significant predictor of shorter progression free (p = 0.040) and overall (p = 0.022) survival.

Conclusions:

The multi-marker immunomagnetic isolation protocol enabled the detection of CTCs in most primary UM patients. Overall, our results suggest that a multi-marker approach could be a powerful tool for CTC separation for non-invasive prognostication of UM.

DOI

10.3390/cancers13235990

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.