PILOT: Development of Individualized Anti-metastatic Strategies by Targeting Circulating Tumor Cell Clusters

Circulating tumer cells are considered as "seeds of metastasis". The analysis of CTC's offers new opportunity to discover new mechanism of cancer metastasis and new liquid biomarkers, and can lead to the development of novel anti-metastatic therpeutics. Compared to single, CTCs, multicellular aggregates of CTCs possess higher metastatic capacity. Our previous studies further indicated the CD$$ mediates CTC aggregation and aggregated CD44 triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells have enhanced metastic aility in mouse models. The final goal of this innovatice translational study is to test the feasability of targeting CD44-mediated CTC cluster formation to inhibit metastasis by GSIs in mouse models, which provides the preclinical evidence to repurpose GSIs for the individualized treatment of metastatic TNBC patients with CD44 CTC clusters.