Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Poster Abstracts

2-POS Board 1 Analyzing the Role of CXCR4 in Metastatic Prostate Cancer through Single-Cell Analysis

Joseph Bae , Anna Sandstrom Gerdtsson, Peter Kuhn. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Metastasis to the bone marrow and other sites comprises the most lethal phase of prostate cancer progression. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are present in the blood at a low concentration, and play a role in the mechanism of metastasis. Homing and retention of cancer cells from the primary tumor to the bone marrow niche is thought to be mediated by the CXCR4 chemokine receptor and its ligand, CXCL12. The High-Definition Single-Cell Analysis (HD-SCA) assay utilizes fluorescent staining and high-throughput microscopy to identify and characterize CTCs among the patient’s leukocyte population in blood and bone marrow samples based on expression of cytokeratin (epithelial cell marker), DAPI (nuclear stain) and CD45 (white blood cell marker). Additionally, this novel platform is useful in identifying various subpopulations of CTCs that are not characterized by other similar assays. The HD-SCA assay can also be expanded upon to accommodate analysis of additional biomarkers of interest by introducing new assays to the platform. CTCs that have been identified using the HD-SCA assay can then be individually isolated and further analyzed through genomic or proteomic profiling. In this study, we have used prostate cancer PC3 cells to develop a HD-SCA compatible fourth color assay for identifying the expression of CXCR4. The assay will be used to elucidate the role of CXCR4 in the homing of tumor cells to metastatic sites such as the bone marrow, and to characterize the relative levels of expression among tumor cells in primary, circulatory, and metastatic compartments.

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