Fig. 2.

Identification and characterization of CTCs in the blood samples of LUAD patients. (A) Scatter plots report HK2 and CK levels of CTCs and CD45^pos leukocytes in the blood samples from P1 and P2. HK2^high and CK^pos cells are gated out by five SDs above the mean of HK2 or CK levels of CD45^pos leukocytes. Numbers of HK2^high/CK^neg/CD45^neg, HK2^low/CK^pos/CD45^neg, HK2^high/CK^pos/CD45^neg, and HK2^low/CK^neg/CD45^neg CTC subsets are displayed in the figure. (B) Representative fluorescence images of CTCs from P1 (Left) and P2 (Right). Images are color coded by respective bars to the right with cell type annotations below. (C) Comparison of cell sizes among CK^pos CTCs, CK^neg CTCs, and leukocytes from P1 and P2 (n = 138, 52, and 2,045, respectively). The dashed and dotted lines of each violin plot denote the median and first and third quartiles, respectively. (D) Single-cell CNV profiles across the autosomes of randomly selected CTCs and leukocytes from P1 and P2, highlighting their genome-wide similarity independent of CK expression. The CTC subtypes and leukocytes are color coded to the right in the same way as B. (E) CTC counts and classification of 30 healthy donors and 50 LUAD patients whose blood samples were analyzed in this study. No CTC was detected in any of the 30 healthy donors.