METHOD FOR DETECTING DEGREE OF MALIGNANCY OF CIRCULATING TUMOR CELL UNIT, AND KIT FOR SAME

摘要

The object of the present invention is to provide an evaluation method capable of accurately determining a metastasis of cancer, the stage of cancer progression, or the malignancy of cancer.
The object can be solved by a method for detecting the degree of malignancy of each of the circulating tumor cells, characterized by the following steps:(a) bringing an epithelial cell-binding component, which specifically binds to a marker molecule expressed on epithelial cells and is fluorescently-labeled or luminescent enzyme-labeled, and a mesenchymal cell-binding component, which specifically binds to a marker molecule expressed on mesenchymal cells and is fluorescently-labeled or luminescent enzyme-labeled, into contact with a sample that possibly contains circulating tumor cells,(b) detecting a fluorescence signal or a luminescence signal of the epithelial cell-binding component and a fluorescence signal or a luminescence signal of the mesenchymal cell-binding component of each of the cells, and (c) determining the degree of epithelial-mesenchymal transition of circulating tumor cells based on the signal amount of the epithelial cell-binding component (E) and the signal amount of the mesenchymal cell-binding component (M).