Genetic expression analysis of circulating tumor cells in patients with melanoma

• Project/Area Number: 15K19683
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Dermatology
• Research Institution: Shinshu University
• Principal Investigator: MIKOSHIBA Yasutomo 信州大学, 医学部附属病院, 医員 (60747153)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2016)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2016: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
• Keywords: メラノーマ / 循環腫瘍細胞 / 遺伝子発現 / BRAF変異 / フローサイトメトリー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we tried to identify and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from patients with melanoma. To this aim, we isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells and stained them with HMW-MAA antibody and B7-H3 antibody. These antibodies combined with negative selection of white blood cells seemed useful for identification CTCs. DNA sequencing was revealed melanoma-specific gene mutation. However. RNA analysis was failed to evaluate mRNA expression. The major reason of this difficulty may be due to insufficient RNA quality during CTC isolation process.