Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells

Technical tip from our dedicated team of Product and Scientific Support specialists

Isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with our EasySep™ and RosetteSep™ cell separation platforms, provides high recovery of these rare cells from whole blood, buffy coat or mononuclear cell preparations. Enriched CTCs are untouched and immediately ready for cell culture, DNA/RNA isolation for genetic analyses, further purification using microfluidics and other downstream assays.

Choosing the best CTC isolation kit for your needs will depend on the type of tumor cell you wish to isolate, and the cell surface marker expression on these cells, as well as your starting sample source.

For the isolation of CTCs from samples where the surface marker expression on the desired tumor cells is known, we recommend one of the following CTC enrichment kits for higher purity and better depletion of unwanted hematopoietic cell types:

PRODUCT NAME

SAMPLE SOURCE

CD45+ DEPLETION

RECOMMENDED FOR

CATALOG #

CAPACITY

RosetteSep™ CTC Enrichment Cocktail Containing Anti-CD36

Whole Blood, Buffy Coat

3.4 - 4.7 log depletion

Recommended for the enrichment of CTCs from by depleting hematopoietic cells expressing the following markers: CD2, CD16, CD19, CD36, CD38, CD45, and CD66b.

Compatible for use with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and pancreatic carcinoma. Not suitable for use with breast cancer samples, as CD36 has been shown to be expressed on a small subset of breast cancer samples.1,2

15127

40 mL

15167

200 mL

RosetteSep™ CTC Enrichment Cocktail Containing Anti-CD56

Whole Blood, Buffy Coat

3.2 - 4.4 log depletion

Recommended for the enrichment of CTCs by depleting hematopoietic cells expressing the following markers: CD3, CD14, CD16, CD19, CD38, CD45, CD56, CD61, and CD66b.

Compatible for use with breast cancer samples. Not suitable for use with small-cell carcinoma samples, as CD56 has been shown to be expressed on small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and pancreatic carcinoma samples.3,4,5

15137

100 mL

15177

200 mL

EasySep™ Direct Human CTC Enrichment Kit

Whole Blood

2.8 - 3.2 log depletion

Recommended for the enrichment of CTCs directly from whole blood without the need for pre-processing steps such as density gradient centrifugation, sedimentation or lysis. This kit enriches for CTCs by depleting hematopoietic cells expressing the following markers: CD2, CD14, CD16, CD19, CD45, CD61, CD66b, and Glycophorin A. Does NOT contain anti-CD36 or anti-CD56.

Compatible for use with most samples, including breast cancer, small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and pancreatic carcinoma samples.

19657

100 mL

If the surface marker expression on your desired CTCs is unknown, we would recommend CD45 Depletion with one of the following kits instead:

PRODUCT NAME

SAMPLE SOURCE

CD45+ DEPLETION

RECOMMENDED FOR

CATALOG #

CAPACITY

RosetteSep™ Human CD45 Depletion Cocktail

Whole Blood, Buffy Coat

3.6 log depletion

Recommended for the enrichment of CTCs by depleting CD45+ hematopoietic cells from fresh whole blood or buffy coat.

15122

40 mL

15162

100 mL

EasySep™ Human Whole Blood CD45 Depletion Kit

Mononuclear cells from whole blood or bone marrow

4.0 log depletion

Recommended for the enrichment of CTCs by depleting CD45+ cell from fresh or previously frozen human mononuclear cells.

17898

2 x 10e9 cells

Cell separation platforms:

  • RosetteSep™ kits offer one-step enrichment of cells directly from human whole blood or buffy coat. By crosslinking unwanted cells to red blood cells (RBCs) present in the sample, CTCs are enriched during standard density gradient centrifugation.
  • RosetteSep™ can be easily combined with SepMate™, a specialized isolation tube that standardizes and minimizes variability when isolating cells using density gradient centrifugation.
  • EasySep™ is an immunomagnetic cell isolation platform suitable for the enrichment of CTCs by targeting unwanted cells for depletion using antibody complexes linked to magnetic particles. Unwanted cells are pulled to the sides of the tube when the sample is placed in an EasySep™ magnet. The enriched cells are then simply poured or pipetted off into a new tube. EasySep™ kits can be completely automated using RoboSep™, the fully automated cell isolation platform.

For more information on our cells separation platforms and CTC isolation products please contact us at techsupport@stemcell.com.

References:

  1. Clezardin P et al. (1993) Expression of thrombospondin (TSP1) and its receptors (CD36 and CD51) in normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic human breast. Cancer Res 53(6): 1421–30.
  2. Kuemmerle NB et al. (2011) Lipoprotein lipase links dietary fat to solid tumor cell proliferation. Mol Cancer Ther 10(3): 427–36.
  3. Kontogianni K et al. (2005) CD56: a useful tool for the diagnosis of small cell lung carcinomas on biopsies with extensive crush artefact. J Clin Pathol 58(9): 978–80.
  4. Naito Y et al. (2006) CD56 (NCAM) expression in pancreatic carcinoma and the surrounding pancreatic tissue. Kurume Med J 53(3–4): 59–62.
  5. Tiemann K et al. (2006) Solid pseudopapillary neoplasms of the pancreas are associated with FLI-1 expression, but not with EWS/FLI-1 translocation. Mod Pathol 19(11): 1409–13.