循环肿瘤细胞在外周血中的存活与转移机制

Mechanism of survival and metastasis of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood

肿瘤转移是恶性肿瘤发展的一个重要阶段,也是导致患者死亡的主要原因。实体恶性肿瘤病灶(原发或转移灶)的肿瘤细胞因自发性脱落或外部因素释放入血形成循环肿瘤细胞(circulating tumor cells,CTCs)。CTCs是肿瘤患者出现复发转移的最直接原因。外周血中的CTCs会因血流剪切力作用、失巢凋亡以及免疫细胞杀伤作用死亡,但仍有小部分的CTCs可以存活下来并发生转移。因此,研究CTCs在外周血中的存活转移机制对肿瘤患者的诊治具有重要意义,本文对CTCs在外周血中存活转移机制的最新研究进展进行了综述,并对其未来发展进行展望。

Metastasis is an important stage in the development of malignant tumors and is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths.Circulating tumor cells(CTCs)shed from primary tumor and/or metastatic lesions into the vasculature and CTCs are commonly described as source of recurrence and metastasis in cancer patients.CTCs disseminate within the bloodstream where most of them die due to the shear forces,anoikis or the attack of immune system.In fact,only a small fraction of CTCs are capable of surviving,seeding distant organs,and eventually giving rise to overt metastatic disease.Therefore,it has great significance to study the mechanism on how CTCs survive and metastasize in bloodstream for the diagnosis and treatment of tumor patients.In this review,we introduce the latest findings regarding CTCs survive and metastasize in blood stream and prospect its development in future.