Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) represent a rare and heterogeneous population of cancer cells thatare detached from the tumor site and entered blood or lymphatic circulation. Once disseminatedin distant tissues, CTCs could remain dormant or create a tumor mass causing serious danger forpatients. Many technologies exist to isolate CTCs from patients’ blood samples, mostly based onmicrofluidic systems or by sorting them according to their surface antigens, notably EpCAM, and/orcytokeratins for carcinoma. ScreenCell has developed an easy‑to‑use, antigen‑independent, rapid,cost‑effective, and efficient technology that isolates CTCs according to their bigger size compared tothe blood cells. This study provides the technical information necessary to isolate and characterizeCTCs from mouse blood. By using blood samples from transgenic mice with breast cancer or fromWT mice in which we spiked cancer cells, we showed that ScreenCell technology is compatiblewith standard EDTA blood collection tubes. Furthermore, the ScreenCell Cyto kit could treat up to500 μl and the ScreenCell MB kit up to 200 μl of mouse blood. As the ScreenCell MB kit capturesunaltered live CTCs, we have shown that their DNA could be efficiently extracted, and the isolatedcells could be grown in culture. In conclusion, ScreenCell provides a rapid, easy, antigen‑independent,cost‑effective, and efficient technology to isolate and characterize CTCs from the blood samples ofcancer patients and murine models. Thanks to this technology CTCs could be captured fixed or alive.Murine cancer models are extensively used in pre‑clinical studies. Therefore, this study demonstratesthe crucial technical points necessary while manipulating mouse blood samples using ScreenCelltechnology.
