The VAR2CSA malaria protein efficiently retrieves circulating tumor cells in an EpCAM-independent manner
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Isolation of metastatic circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from cancer patients is of high value for disease monitoring and molecular characterization. Despite the development of many new CTC isolation platforms in the last decade, their isolation and detection has remained a challenge due to the lack of specific and sensitive markers. In this feasibility study, we present a method for CTC isolation based on the specific binding of the malaria rVAR2 protein to oncofetal chondroitin sulfate (ofCS). We show that rVAR2 efficiently captures CTCs from hepatic, lung, pancreatic, and prostate carcinoma patients with minimal contamination of peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Expression of ofCS is present on epithelial and mesenchymal cancer cells and is equally preserved during epithelial-mesenchymal transition of cancer cells. In 25 stage I-IV prostate cancer patient samples, CTC enumeration significantly correlates with disease stage. Lastly, rVAR2 targets a larger and more diverse population of CTCs compared to anti-EpCAM strategies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".