Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a rare subset of cells found in the blood of patients with solid tumors, which function as a seed for metastases. Cancer cells metastasize through the bloodstream either as single migratory CTCs or as multicellular groupings-CTC clusters. The CTCs preserve primary tumor heterogeneity and mimic tumor properties, and may be considered as clinical biomarker, preclinical model, and therapeutic target. The potential clinical application of CTCs is being a component of liquid biopsy. CTCs are also good candidates for generating preclinical models, especially 3D organoid cultures, which could be applied in drug screening, disease modeling, genome editing, tumor immunity, and organoid biobanks. In this review, we summarize current knowledge on the value and promise of evolving CTC technologies and highlight cutting-edge research on CTCs in liquid biopsy, tumor metastasis, and organoid preclinical models. The study of CTCs offers broad pathways to develop new biomarkers for tumor patient diagnosis, prognosis, and response to therapy, as well as translational models accelerating oncologic drug development.

中文翻译：

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精密肿瘤学中的循环肿瘤细胞：液体活检和3D类器官模型的临床应用。

循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）是实体瘤患者血液中发现的罕见细胞亚群，其功能是转移的种子。癌细胞以单迁移CTC或多细胞分组CTC簇的形式在血管中转移。CTC保留了原发性肿瘤的异质性并模仿了肿瘤的性质，可被视为临床生物标志物，临床前模型和治疗靶标。CTC的潜在临床应用正在成为液体活检的组成部分。CTC也是生成临床前模型（尤其是3D类器官培养物）的良好候选者，可用于药物筛选，疾病建模，基因组编辑，肿瘤免疫和类器官生物库。在这篇评论中，我们总结了当前有关不断发展的CTC技术的价值和前景的知识，并着重介绍了在液体活检，肿瘤转移和类器官临床前模型中对CTC进行的前沿研究。CTC的研究提供了广泛的途径来开发新的生物标记物，用于肿瘤患者的诊断，预后和对治疗的反应，以及加速肿瘤药物开发的转化模型。