Children's National Health System

2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Cancer Research

The Establishment of a Lung Colonization Assay for Circulating Tumor Cell Visualization in Lung Tissues

Tsung-Cheng Lin¹, Ying-Chih Liao², Wen-Tsan Chang^1,2, Cheng-Han Yang¹, Li-Hsin Cheng¹, Megan Cheng³, Hung-Chi Cheng^1,2

¹The Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, ²Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, ³Trauma Office, Children's National Health System

An animal model is needed to decipher the role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in promoting lung colonization during cancer metastasis. Here, we established and successfully performed an in vivo assay to specifically test the requirement of polymeric fibronectin (polyFN) assembly on CTCs for lung colonization.

Cancer Research

Detection and Monitoring of Tumor Associated Circulating DNA in Patient Biofluids

Erin R. Bonner^1,2, Karim Saoud¹, Sulgi Lee^1,2, Eshini Panditharatna³, Madhuri Kambhampati¹, Sabine Mueller^4,5, Javad Nazarian^1,2,5

¹Center for Genetic Medicine, Children's National Health System, ²Institute for Biomedical Sciences, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, ³Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, ⁴Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, ⁵DIPG Centre of Expertise Zurich, Universitats-Kinderspital Zurich

Here, we present a protocol to detect tumor somatic mutations in circulating DNA present in patient biological fluids (biofluids). Our droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR)-based method enables quantification of the tumor mutation allelic frequency (MAF), facilitating a minimally invasive complement to diagnosis and temporal monitoring of tumor response.