Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have developed a new method to detect circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive form of breast cancer. TNBC is known for its high likelihood of metastasis, which leads to most breast cancer-related deaths. Tracking these CTCs has been difficult due to a lack of specific markers.
The Baylor team created a procedure that improves detection of TNBC cells from blood samples, often referred to as ‘liquid biopsies.’ This approach identified four new proteins on the surface of live CTCs—AHNAK2, CAVIN1, ODR4 and TRIML2—that specifically mark these cells. Capturing live cells enables scientists to analyze their genetic material and better understand how cancer spreads.
The findings were published in Cancer Research Communications.
“We developed a new workflow to isolate and analyze live CTCs, focusing first on mouse models of metastatic TNBC and then testing our findings in patient samples,” said Dr. Bree M. Lege, former graduate student at Baylor and first author on the study. Dr. Chonghui Cheng, professor at Baylor College of Medicine’s Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center and corresponding author, added: “We are very pleased with our approach to identify CTCs in blood. The new markers detected cells that standard methods missed. When the four new markers were combined, detection improved substantially. Importantly, the new markers on CTCs showed very little overlap with markers on normal blood cells, reducing the risk of false positives.”
Cheng also noted: “We were excited with the results with blood from patients with metastatic TNBC. In these patients, tumor cells were frequently undetectable using standard markers but became clearly visible when we applied the new marker combination.”
This advancement addresses limitations in current liquid biopsy technology for aggressive breast cancers by allowing more reliable detection of TNBC CTCs. The ability to capture live tumor cells may help doctors monitor disease progression and treatment response more accurately while providing researchers insight into why some tumors resist treatment.
“Another exciting finding is that the newly identified markers are also expressed in other cancer types, suggesting that this strategy could improve CTC detection across multiple cancers,” Cheng said.
Baylor College of Medicine holds a provisional patent for this enhanced detection method.
Other contributors include Khushali J. Patel, Brendan Panici, Ping Gong, Michael T. Lewis and Matthew J. Ellis—all affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine.
Funding for this project came from grants provided by the Department of Defense (HT94252310753), NIH (R01CA276432), CPRIT Cancer Research fellowship (RR160009), Patient-Derived Xenograft Core at Baylor’s Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center through CPRIT Core Facility Award (RP220646) and P30 Cancer Center Support Grant (NCI-CA125123), as well as support from Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core at Baylor via CPRIT Core Facility Support Award (CPRIT-RP180672) and NIH grants (P30 CA125123; S10 RR024574).
Baylor College of Medicine is an independent health sciences university based in Houston’s Texas Medical Center since 1943 after originating in Dallas in 1900 as University of Dallas Medical Department (official website). The institution advances research innovation while offering education through its schools focused on medicine, biomedical sciences, health professions and tropical medicine (official website). It provides patient care through partnerships and emphasizes community service among its core activities (official website).
