ArticleBritish journal of cancer2023
Feasibility of mass cytometry proteomic characterisation of circulating tumour cells in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma for deep phenotyping.
Article in British journal of cancer, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Towards liquid biopsy-based analysis of antitumour immunity.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2026Review
- CyTOF-based profiling of circulating tumor cells predicts aggressiveness and therapy response in SCLC liquid biopsies at a personalized level.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Circulating tumor cells: Blood-based detection, molecular biology, and clinical applications.Cancer cell · 2025Review
- Unlocking the Potential of Liquid Biopsy: A Paradigm Shift in Endometrial Cancer Care.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Circulating tumor cells and clusters as liquid biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of neuroblastoma.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Surfaceome: a new era in the discovery of immune evasion mechanisms of circulating tumor cells.Molecular oncology · 2025Review
- Transcriptomic profiling of blood platelets identifies a diagnostic signature for pancreatic cancer.British journal of cancer · 2025Article
- Multi-omics in immunotherapy research for HNSCC: present situation and future perspectives.NPJ precision oncology · 2025Review
- Lessons (to be) learned from liquid biopsies: assessment of circulating cells and cell-free DNA in cancer and pregnancy-acquired microchimerism.Seminars in immunopathology · 2025Review
- Post-Translational Modifications of Proteins Orchestrate All Hallmarks of Cancer.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Circulating fibroblasts and neutrophils co-expressing CDH11Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Review
- Advancements in Circulating Tumor Cell Research: Bridging Biology and Clinical Applications.Cancers · 2024Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCirculating tumour cells (CTCs) are a potential cancer biomarker, but current methods of CTC analysis at single-cell resolution are limited. Here, we describe high-dimensional single-cell mass cytometry proteomic analysis of CTCs in HNSCC.
methodsParsortix microfluidic-enriched CTCs from 14 treatment-naïve HNSCC patients were analysed by mass cytometry analysis using 41 antibodies. Immune cell lineage, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), stemness, proliferation and immune checkpoint expression was assessed alongside phosphorylation status of multiple signalling proteins. Patient-matched tumour gene expression and CTC EMT profiles were compared. Standard bulk CTC RNAseq was performed as a baseline comparator to assess mass cytometry data.
resultsCTCs were detected in 13/14 patients with CTC counts of 2-24 CTCs/ml blood. Unsupervised clustering separated CTCs into epithelial, early EMT and advanced EMT groups that differed in signalling pathway activation state. Patient-specific CTC cluster patterns separated into immune checkpoint low and high groups. Patient tumour and CTC EMT profiles differed. Mass cytometry outperformed bulk RNAseq to detect CTCs and characterise cell phenotype. DISCUSSION: We demonstrate mass cytometry allows high-plex proteomic characterisation of CTCs at single-cell resolution and identify common CTC sub-groups with potential for novel biomarker development and immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment stratification.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.