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Theranostics 2021; 11(16):8057-8075. doi:10.7150/thno.59677 This issue Cite

Review

Emerging role of circulating tumor cells in immunotherapy

Alexey Rzhevskiy^1,2,3✉, Alina Kapitannikova², Polina Malinina⁴, Arthur Volovetsky^2,5, Hamidreza Aboulkheyr Es⁶, Arutha Kulasinghe^7,8, Jean Paul Thiery^2,9, Anna Maslennikova^5,10, Andrei V. Zvyagin^1,2,11✉, Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani^2,6✉

1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
2. Institute of Molecular Medicine, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
3. Institute for Urology and Reproductive Health, Sechenov University, Moscow 119991, Russia
4. Privolzhsky Research Medical University, 10/1, Minini Pozharsky Square, Nizhny Novgorod 603005, Russia
5. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Gagarina Avenue 23, Nizhny Novgorod 603950, Russia
6. School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, 2007 Sydney, Australia
7. Queensland University of Technology, Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia
8. Translational Research Institute, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102 Australia
9. Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China
10. The Chair of Cancer, Radiotherapy and Radiologic Diagnostics, Privolzhsky Research Medical University, Nizhniy Novgorod. Russia 603005
11. IBCh - Shemyakin Ovchinnikov Institute of BioOrganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Miklukho Maklai Street, 16, Moscow, Russia

✉ Corresponding authors: alexey.rzhevskiymq.edu.au; andrei.zvyaginedu.au; Majid.Warkianiedu.au. School of Biomedical Engineering, University Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia

Abstract

Over the last few years, immunotherapy, in particular, immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, has revolutionized the treatment of several types of cancer. At the same time, the uptake in clinical oncology has been slow owing to the high cost of treatment, associated toxicity profiles and variability of the response to treatment between patients. In response, personalized approaches based on predictive biomarkers have emerged as new tools for patient stratification to achieve effective immunotherapy. Recently, the enumeration and molecular analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been highlighted as prognostic biomarkers for the management of cancer patients during chemotherapy and for targeted therapy in a personalized manner. The expression of immune checkpoints on CTCs has been reported in a number of solid tumor types and has provided new insight into cancer immunotherapy management. In this review, we discuss recent advances in the identification of immune checkpoints using CTCs and shed light on the potential applications of CTCs towards the identification of predictive biomarkers for immunotherapy.

Keywords: Immunotherapy, circulating tumor cells, immune checkpoint inhibitors, cancer, personalized medicine

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