以微小RNA作为新型标志物检测循环肿瘤细胞及其临床意义

Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells Using MicroRNA as A Novel Marker and Its Clinical Significance

循环肿瘤细胞(circulating tumor cell,CTC)是随血液循环一起转运的实体肿瘤细胞,与实体肿瘤的发展、转移、复发和预后等关系密切。然而,CTC数量的稀少使有效检测CTC具有较大的挑战性。微小RNA(microRNA,miRNA)作为一类新发现的基因表达调控分子,在肿瘤的发生、发展、转归等过程中起着重要的作用。CTC关联性miRNA的研究为CTC的检测和肿瘤的诊治开创了新思路。该文介绍了CTC的临床意义和主要分析方法,在CTC关联性miRNA与肿瘤诊断、治疗和预后等方面总结了这类新型肿瘤细胞标志物的研究进展。

Circulating tumor cells（CTCs） are solid tumor cells that circulate with blood stream.They are closely associated with the cancer,progress,metastasis,relapse and prognosis.However,the limited number of CTCs makes their efficient detection a big challenge.MicroRNAs（miRNAs）,the newly found gene expression regulators,play important roles in cancer recurrence,progress and outcome.The studies on the CTC-associated miRNAs open us mind about CTC detection,and cancer diagnosis and treatment.In this paper,we first introduced the clinical significance of CTCs and the main detection methods,and then summarized the recent research progresses of the relationships between CTC-associated miRNAs,which have been considered as novel tumor cell markers,and cancer diagnosis,treatment and outcome.