TY - JOUR AB - Altered glycosylation is a predominant feature of tumour cells; it serves for cell adhesion and detachment, respectively, and facilitates the immune escape of these cells. Therefore changes in the expression of glycosyltransferase genes could help to identify circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in the blood samples of cancer patients using a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) approach. Blood samples of healthy donors were inoculated with certain numbers of established breast cancer cell line cells, thus creating a model system. These samples were analysed by quantitative PCR for the expression of six different glycosyltransferase genes. The three genes with the best results in the model system were consecutively applied to samples from adjuvant breast cancer patients and of healthy donors. FUT3 and GALNT6 showed the highest increase in relative expression, while GALNT6 and ST3GAL3 were the first to reach statistically significant different ∆CT‑values comparing the sample with and without addition of tumour cells. These three genes were applied to patient samples, but did not show any significant results that may suggest the presence of CTCs in the blood. Although the relative expression of some of the glycosyltransferase genes exhibited reasonable results in the model system, their application to breast cancer patient samples will have to be further improved, e.g. by co‑analysis of patient blood samples by gold-standard methods. AD - Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ludwig‑Maximilians‑University of Munich, Munich D‑80337, Germany Translational Molecular Pathology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77054, USA AU - Kölbl,Alexandra,C. AU - Hiller,Roman,A. AU - Ilmer,Mathias AU - Liesche,Friederike AU - Heublein,Sabine AU - Schröder,Lennard AU - Hutter,Stefan AU - Friese,Klaus AU - Jeschke,Udo AU - Andergassen,Ulrich DA - 2015/08/01 DO - 10.3892/mmr.2015.3732 EP - 2938 IS - 2 JO - Mol Med Rep KW - circulating tumour cells polymerase chain reaction glycosyltransferases breast cancer PY - 2015 SN - 1791-2997 1791-3004 SP - 2933 ST - Glycosyltransferases as marker genes for the quantitative polymerase chain reaction-based detection of circulating tumour cells from blood samples of patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant therapy T2 - Molecular Medicine Reports TI - Glycosyltransferases as marker genes for the quantitative polymerase chain reaction-based detection of circulating tumour cells from blood samples of patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant therapy UR - https://doi.org/10.3892/mmr.2015.3732 VL - 12 ER -