https://scholar.dgist.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11750/1156 2026-04-04T14:14:42Z https://scholar.dgist.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11750/59943 Title: CD45+hybrid circulating cells may reflect tumor-immune interactions and serve as transcriptomic indicators of metastatic potential in prostate cancer Author(s): Kim, Baek Gil; Jang, Yeonsue; Kim, Min Gyu; Song, Dongwook; Jung, Jungchan; Jung, Jihee; Yoo, Ayoung; Lee, Jongsoo; Cho, Nam Hoon; Woo, Hyeong Jung; Kim, Woon-Hae; Shin, Hyun Young; Kim, Minseok S.; Han, Hyun Ho; Joung, Jae Young Abstract: Rationale: Circulating hybrid cells expressing both epithelial and immune markers have emerged as indicators of dynamic tumor-immune interactions. This study aimed to characterize circulating hybrid cells co-expressing KRT18 (pan-cytokeratin) and PTPRC (CD45), termed KP_Pos, in metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa), and to assess their molecular features, tumor microenvironmental (TME) origins, and clinical relevance. Methods: Imaging mass cytometry (IMC) was used to examine spatial relationships between CK+tumor and CD45+ immune cells in metastatic prostate tissues. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets from mPCa were analyzed to identify KP_Pos cells and characterize their transcriptional heterogeneity across epithelial and immune lineages. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between KP_Pos and other cells were used to generate predictive gene signatures. Random forest (RF) and extreme gradient boosting (XGB) models were applied to evaluate metastatic classification performance, and high-performing signatures were validated in bulk RNA-seq datasets and correlated with clinical parameters. Results: IMC revealed frequent spatial proximity between tumor and immune compartments, supporting a TME-derived hybrid phenotype. KP_Pos cells were detected across multiple immune and epithelial clusters, showing heterogeneity and enrichment of immune response and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related genes. Machine learning-based classifiers using KP_Pos-derived DEGs achieved high predictive accuracy (AUC >= 0.7) for metastasis, and selected combinations further improved performance in internal validation sets. Signature scores significantly correlated with PSA and Gleason grade, and CD45+ hybrid circulating cells were more abundant in patients with advanced disease burden. Conclusions: CD45+ KRT18+ hybrid circulating cells (KP_Pos) represent biologically distinct populations shaped by tumor-immune interactions within the TME. Their transcriptomic features and derived gene signatures may serve as biomarkers of metastatic potential and indicators of disease progression in prostate cancer. However, their causal role in metastasis and impact on survival remain to be determined. 2025-12-31T15:00:00Z https://scholar.dgist.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11750/59118 Title: 무손실 세포 염색 방법 및 장치 Author(s): 김민석 https://scholar.dgist.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11750/58957 Title: Robust Automated Separation of Circulating Tumor Cells and Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts for Enhanced Liquid Biopsy in Breast Cancer Author(s): Woo, Hyeong Jung; Rademacher, Paul N.; Shin, Hyun Young; Lee, Jungmin; Tasnuf, Aseer Intisar; Warkiani, Majid E.; Joung, Jae Young; Rzhevskiy, Alexey; Coith, Cornelia; Harten, Frederike; Hilpert, Felix; Schmalfeldt, Barbara; Riethdorf, Sabine; Pantel, Klaus; Joosse, Simon A.; Kim, Minseok S. Abstract: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a key biomarker in cancer diagnostics, offering critical insights into metastasis and treatment responses. Although several automated CTC isolation systems have been developed, a thorough comparison of their performance with diverse cell types remains lacking. In addition to CTCs, simultaneous tumor microenvironment (TME) analysis can be valuable for formulating cancer treatment strategies. This includes investigating circulating cancer-associated fibroblasts (cCAFs), which offer a minimally invasive, real-time status of the TME, enabling frequent monitoring of cancer metastasis and treatment response. However, the automated and simultaneous isolation of CTCs and cCAFs has been unexplored. This research systematically evaluated the performance of FDA-registered automated CTC isolation systems with cancer cells of heterogeneous phenotypes, a breast cancer CTC cell line, as well as clinical samples from 27 breast cancer patients. The continuous centrifugal microfluidic system (CTCeptor) demonstrated superior recovery rates and enriched CTCs with broader size and surface marker heterogeneity compared to other positive selection-based technologies, isolating significantly more CTCs from the blood of cancer patients and achieving high detection rates. Notably, since the system relies on an unbiased isolation method, it also isolated cCAFs from patient blood, which were detected at frequencies 10 times higher than CTCs in early-stage breast cancer patients. For the first time, this study identified key CAF markers, highlighting the potential of cCAFs as a biomarker for early diagnosis and prognosis. The ability of this automated system to efficiently isolate both CTCs and cCAFs represents a significant advancement in liquid biopsy and precision oncology. 2025-07-31T15:00:00Z https://scholar.dgist.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11750/58790 Title: MICROFLUIDIC DEVICE AND METHOD FOR SEPARATING TARGET CELLS BY USING SAME Author(s): 김민석 Abstract: A microfluidic device and a method for separating target cells by using same are provided. A microfluidic device according to an embodiment of the present invention is for separating, from a biological sample, a first material in the sample, and comprises: a body that is rotatable around a rotary shaft; a mixing chamber which is provided in the body, and in which the sample and a magnetic bead, to be coupled with a second material in the sample, are mixed; a separation chamber which is provided in the body, which is connected to the mixing chamber, and in which a mixed sample, having the second material that is coupled with the magnetic bead and the first material mixed therein, is separated; and a magnetic member disposed on one side of the outside of the separation chamber, wherein the microfluidic device can be formed so that, in the separation chamber, the second material, coupled with the magnetic bead and the first material are separated by means of centrifugal force and magnetic force.