Figure 4.

(A) Cells considered to be CTCs are indicated with a white arrow. This figure depicts the heterogeneity of detected CTC in one single HCC blood sample. Among hematopoietic CD45-positve cells, it shows two CTCs that were both pan-CK-positive (red) and CD45-positive (green), while one of them was also EpCAM-positive (yellow). All cells showed a positive nuclear staining (DAPI, blue). (B) Example of individual morphologic profile showing one epithelial (CK-positive) and three mesenchymal (N-cadherin-positive) cells. (C) CTC subtypes were summarized, normalized against the total amount of cells in the DAPI channel per visual field, and expressed in potential CTC per 1000 PBMNCs after enrichment.