| Description |
| The Carcinoma Cell Enrichment Kit is a magnetic labeling system that achieves a more than 10,000-fold enrichment of epithelial tumor cells from peripheral blood, bone marrow, or lymphoid tissue. Thus, large patient samples can be narrowed and screened for disseminated tumor cells on only a few microscopy slides. Detection rates of occult tumor cells can be increased to more than 80%.1,2 Single tumor cells and tumor cell clusters have been enriched for further characterization, for example by DNA staining and immunocytochemistry.3,4 Tumor cells of epithelial origin such as metastatic carcinomas express cytokeratins and can be positively selected by using Anti-Cytokeratin MicroBeads. Cells are permeabilized, fixed, and incubated with Anti-Cytokeratin MicroBeads for direct immunomagnetic labeling of intracellular cytokeratin. The magnetically labeled cells are then enriched using MS or LS Columns. |
| Applications |
| Since the separation procedure preserves cell morphology, carcinoma cells can quickly and easily be identified and enumerated by immunocytochemistry, immunofluorescence microscopy, or flow cytometry. Enriched carcinoma cells can also be further analyzed by molecular biology methods. |
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| Figure 1 |
| Cytokeratin-positive cells were enriched from bone marrow of a patient with colon carcinoma by using the Carcinoma Cell Enrichment Kit. Cells were stained with Anti-Cytokeratin-FITC and Anti-FITC Alkaline Phosphatase. (Courtesy of Dr. Weihrauch and Dr. Skibowski, Lab of Immunology, University of Cologne, Germany.) |
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| Figure 2 |
| Enrichment of epithelial tumor cells, for example from peripheral blood, using the Carcinoma Cell Enrichment Kit, two MS Columns, and a MiniMACS™ Separator. |
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