Unreliability of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in detecting contaminating breast cancer cells in peripheral blood stem cells due to induction of CEA by growth factors (original) (raw)

Tumour Cell Contamination

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 24, pages 769–775 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

RT-PCR is increasingly used for the detection of minimal residual disease in solid tumors. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) RT-PCR seemed to be highly specific for detection of tumor cells when tested on PBMC. A very high frequency of RT-PCR amplification product for CEA in PBSC from breast cancer patients mobilized with G-CSF was found. However, this result contrasted with tumor cell detection by immunocytochemistry (ICC) which showed no correlation with RT-PCR results. In addition, CEA mRNA was amplified in most G-CSF-mobilized PBSC samples derived from patients with hematological malignancies and from healthy donors of allogeneic stem cells, although no circulating epithelial cells could be demonstrated by ICC. CEA RT-PCR expression was observed in PBMC from healthy individuals incubated in vitro with G-CSF. These data suggest that CEA transcription can be induced by G-CSF, resulting in a loss of specificity of CEA RT-PCR for tumor cell detection in PBMC. We conclude, CEA RT-PCR may not be recommended to detect tumor cell contamination in peripheral blood from patients treated with G-CSF. This may have implications on tumor cell detection by RT-PCR in tissues where endogenous or exogenous growth factors may induce the transcription of CEA or other genes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Experimental Oncology and Hematology, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
    J-C Goeminne, T Guillaume, M Salmon, J-P Machiels, V D’Hondt & M Symann

Authors

  1. J-C Goeminne
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  2. T Guillaume
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  3. M Salmon
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  4. J-P Machiels
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  5. V D’Hondt
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  6. M Symann
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Goeminne, JC., Guillaume, T., Salmon, M. et al. Unreliability of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in detecting contaminating breast cancer cells in peripheral blood stem cells due to induction of CEA by growth factors.Bone Marrow Transplant 24, 769–775 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1701966

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