Table 2.
nCounter signal detection of DTC-associated transcripts in BM specimens from five breast cancer patients with previously documented DTCs by ICC, who also developed metastatic disease. Molecular phenotype and clinical characteristics of the five tumors are shown, including the number of DTCs bone marrow cells detected by immunocytochemistry (ICC) per two million mononucleated cells. Mean signal counts from triplicate assays for each gene transcript in each BM sample are shown with the standard deviation from triplicate samples; values which exceed two standard deviations above the mean of eight bone marrow samples from healthy individuals are in bold. Note that EPCAM and SCGB2A2 expression in sample 7547 approached two standard deviations above the reference range, but did not exceed this threshold.
| Pt ID | Control BM | 2904 | 9645 | 9290 | 7547 | 6335 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ER | -- | neg | neg | pos | pos | neg |
| PR | -- | neg | neg | pos | pos | neg |
| Her-2 | -- | neg | neg | neg | neg | pos |
| DTCs by ICC | -- | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 10 |
| Months to recurrence | -- | 15 | 12 | 48 | 15 | 22 |
| Metastatic site | -- | Liver | Lung | Bone | Ovary | Liver, Bone |
| TWIST1 | 13 ± 8 | 8 ± 9 | 6 ± 2 | 10 ± 4 | 2 ± 1 | 68 ± 13 |
| SNAI2 | 32 ± 40 | 18 ± 19 | 315 ± 10 | 66 ± 11 | 55 ± 9 | 31 ± 3 |
| EPCAM | 293 ± 134 | 694 ± 283 | 213 ±13 | 446 ± 70 | 397 ± 12 | 178 ± 57 |
| SCGB2A2 | 5 ± 15 | 1 ± 1 | 1 ± 1 | 1 ± 1 | 15 ± 5 | 1 ± 1 |
| EGFR | 21 ± 12 | 11 ± 14 | 27 ± 3 | 28 ± 6 | 17 ± 4 | 100 ± 21 |
| S100A3 | 32 ± 13 | 57 ± 18 | 28 ± 1 | 78 ± 20 | 37 ± 10 | 38 ± 11 |
| PITX2 | 10 ± 8 | 4 ± 2 | 5 ± 0 | 10 ± 6 | 1 ± 2 | 105 ± 13 |
| KRT17 | 91 ± 48 | 48 ± 40 | 258 ± 25 | 101 ± 15 | 27 ± 7 | 118 ± 29 |
| KRT19 | 34 ± 19 | 22 ± 14 | 19 ± 5 | 42 ± 5 | 9 ± 2 | 139 ± 18 |