Figure 2. FACS-sorted CTC populations derived from primary breast tumors.

(a) Breast cancer gene expression array profiling of FACS-enriched CD45^-/EpCAM-negative/CD24⁻/CD44⁺/uPAR^+/−/int β1^+/− CTC subsets derived from BCBM and no BCBM patients. mRNAs were amplified by REPLI-g WTA single cell kit (Qiagen) followed by real-time PCR analysis. Ct values and fold expression were calculated by online RT² PCR profiler array data analyses software version 3.5 (http://pcrdataanalysis.sabiosciences.com/pcr/arrayanalysis.php) (Qiagen). Heat map and clustergram analyses were generated by online software Treeview and Cluster (Eisen lab, University of California, Berkeley). BCBM, Breast Cancer Brain Metastasis; (b) STR DNA fingerprinting of FACS-sorted CTC subsets derived from BCBM patients have unique profiles over cell lines available to NCI databases.