Metastatic founder cell candidates resemble preimplantation embryonic blastomeres
Disseminated cancer cells (DCC) in non-metastatic carcinoma patient bone marrow (BM) are predictive of metastasis. Those detected by epithelial cytokeratin or EpCAM expression have poorly-characterized transcription profiles due to their extreme rarity: 1∼2 cells per 2x 106 BM cells in every third non-metastatic patien...