Analysis of Circulating Breast Cancer Cell Heterogeneity and Interactions with Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells.

Purpose: To infer interactions between circulating breast cancer cells and peripheral mononuclear cells using bioinformatics analysis of single cell RNA-sequencing. Methods: Filter based method for capturing single cells from 7.5mL of blood from patients with breast cancer, followed by single cell RNA-sequencing. Results: Transcriptomes predicted for two CTC populations with distinct expression profiles and interactions with peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Overall design: 10 samples from breast cancer patients (9 with metastatic breast cancer and 1 with stage 2 local breast cancer). A total of 7.5 mL of blood from each sample was used to capture single cells for single cell RNA-sequencing.