Reality of Single Circulating Tumor Cell Sequencing for Molecular Diagnostics in Pancreatic Cancer.

To understand the potential and limitations of circulating tumor cell (CTC) sequencing for molecular diagnostics, we investigated the feasibility of identifying the ubiquitous KRAS mutation in single CTCs from pancreatic cancer (PC) patients. We used the NanoVelcro/laser capture microdissection CTC platform, combined with whole genome amplification and KRAS Sanger sequencing. We assessed both KRAS codon-12 coverage and the degree that allele dropout during whole genome amplification affected the detection of KRAS mutations from single CTCs.