Single-circulating tumor cell whole genome amplification to unravel cancer heterogeneity and actionable biomarkers

Tanzila Khan, Therese M. Becker, J. W. Po, Wei Chua, Yafeng Ma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The field of single-cell analysis has advanced rapidly in the last decade and is providing new insights into the characterization of intercellular genetic heterogeneity and complexity, especially in human cancer. In this regard, analyzing single circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is becoming particularly attractive due to the easy access to CTCs from simple blood samples called “liquid biopsies”. Analysis of multiple single CTCs has the potential to allow the identification and characterization of cancer heterogeneity to guide best therapy and predict therapeutic response. However, single-CTC analysis is restricted by the low amounts of DNA in a single cell genome. Whole genome amplification (WGA) techniques have emerged as a key step, enabling single-cell downstream molecular analysis. Here, we provide an overview of recent advances in WGA and their applications in the genetic analysis of single CTCs, along with prospective views towards clinical applications. First, we focus on the technical challenges of isolating and recovering single CTCs and then explore different WGA methodologies and recent developments which have been utilized to amplify single cell genomes for further downstream analysis. Lastly, we list a portfolio of CTC studies which employ WGA and single-cell analysis for genetic heterogeneity and biomarker detection.
Original languageEnglish
Article number8386
Number of pages19
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume23
Issue number15
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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