Hello all,
I am trying to understand more about metastatic breast cancer. I understand HER2, PR or ER will be over expressed in CTC (based on different types of breast cancer). But I would like to make sure that there are no HER2, PR or ER proteins in the blood. What if the patients are cured from metastatic breast cancer. Will there be any HER2, PR, and ER floating around in the blood?
Thank you very much!!
Diya
ER and PR are intracellular receptors that may be overexpressed in certain breast cancers. If they are overexpressed we say that the tumor is probably hormone dependent. But ER and PR are not circulating molecules. You do not find them in blood of normal women nor in blood of women or men with breast cancer.
Her2 is a growth receptor found on the surface of certain breast cancer cells. When they are overexpressed we say that the tumor is Her2 positive. Again Her2 is not a molecule that circulates in peripheral blood. Actually it is an isoform of EGF receptor.
When ER, PR, and Her2 are not overexpressed, we say that it is a triple negative breast cancer. The three of them are receptors found in breast cancer cells but not circulating in blood.
Likely no just floating around, but from this publication it appears that lymphocytes express EGFR
Article Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Expression Licenses Type-2 ...
and so it is possible that they express HER2 as well. This may be true for the other blood cell types. If your assay involves cell sorting of some type you might want to add antibodies recognizing hemtopoietic cells and gate them out.
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