Circulating tumor cells as a prognostic factor in patients with small cell lung cancer.

The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in peripheral blood is currently an important field of study. Detection of CTCs by the OBP-401 assay (TelomeScan) has previously been reported to be useful in the diagnosis, prognosis and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy in breast and gastric cancer. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the OBP-401 assay as a novel method of detecting CTCs of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients and to evaluate whether CTC count is associated with prognosis.

A novel approach using telomerase-specific replication-selective adenovirus for detection of circulating tumor cells in breast cancer patients.

The aim of this study was to develop a new method for detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in breast cancer patients by using the telomerase-specific replication-selective adenovirus OBP-401. Once transfected, OBP-401 can replicate only in telomerase expressing cells and emit fluorescence as it replicates so that the transfected cells become easily recognizable. Peripheral blood samples were drawn from 50 metastatic breast cancer patients and 27 early breast cancer patients.

Persistent and stable gene expression by a cytoplasmic RNA replicon based on a noncytopathic variant Sendai virus.

Persistent and stable expression of foreign genes has been achieved in mammalian cells by integrating the genes into the host chromosomes. However, this approach has several shortcomings in practical applications. For example, large scale production of protein pharmaceutics frequently requires laborious amplification of the inserted genes to optimize the gene expression.