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Fig. 1 | Breast Cancer Research

Fig. 1

From: In patients with metastatic breast cancer the identification of circulating tumor cells in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition is associated with a poor prognosis

Fig. 1

CTC enrichment strategy. a Scheme showing the enrichment strategy. b Dot plots showing physical parameters (i) and CD45 expression of cells before (ii) and after depletion (iii), (iv). CD45-positive (iii) and CD45-negative (iv) fractions are shown. c Immunofluorescence analysis of the epithelial-like (MCF7, left panels) and mesenchymal-like (MDA-MB231, right panels) breast cancer cell lines showing cytokeratin (green fluorescence) and vimentin (red fluorescence) expression. Nuclei are labeled by DAPI (blue fluorescence). d FACS analysis showing, in histograms, the differential expression of epithelial and mesenchymal surface antigens by MCF-7 (green histograms) and MDA-MB231 (red histograms) cell lines. White histograms show negative controls. e Histograms showing the estimated number of CD45-negative peripheral blood mononuclear cells, isolated from 7.5 ml of healthy blood female donors (n = 10), expressing either epithelial or mesenchymal antigens. f FACS plot showing the ability of the enrichment strategy to identify MCF7 and MDA-MB231 cells spiked into healthy donor peripheral blood samples. DAPI 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole, EpCAM epithelial cell adhesion molecule. (Color figure online), FSC forward scatter, SSC side scatter, MFI mean fluorescence intensity

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Breast Cancer Research

ISSN: 1465-542X

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