Quantification of circulating mature endothelial cells using a whole blood four-color flow cytometric assay

Circulating endothelial cells (CEC) are currently proposed as a potential biomarker for measuring the impact of anti-angiogenic treatments in cancer. However, the lack of consensus on the appropriate method of CEC measurement has led to conflicting data in cancer patients. A validated assay adapted for evaluating the clinical utility of CEC in large cohorts of patients undergoing anti-angiogenic treatments is needed. We developed a four-color flow cytometric assay to measure CEC as CD31⁺, CD146⁺, CD45^-, 7-amino-actinomycin-D (7AAD)^- events in whole blood. The distinctive features of the assay are: (1) staining of 1 ml whole blood, (2) use of a whole blood IgPE control to measure accurately background noise, (3) accumulation of a large number of events (almost 5 10⁶) to ensure statistical analysis, and (4) use of 10 μm fluorescent microbeads to evaluate the event size. Assay reproducibility was determined in duplicate aliquots of samples drawn from 20 metastatic cancer patients. Assay linearity was tested by spiking whole blood with low numbers of HUVEC. Five-color flow cytometric experiments with CD144 were performed to confirm the endothelial origin of the cells. CEC were measured in 20 healthy individuals and 125 patients with metastatic cancer. Reproducibility was good between duplicate aliquots (r² = 0.948, mean difference between duplicates of 0.86 CEC/ml). Detected HUVEC correlated with spiked HUVEC (r² = 0.916, mean recovery of 100.3%). Co-staining of CD31, CD146 and CD144 confirmed the endothelial nature of cells identified as CEC. Median CEC levels were 6.5/ml (range, 0-15) in healthy individuals and 15.0/ml (range, 0-179) in patients with metastatic carcinoma (p < 0.001). The assay proposed here allows reproducible and sensitive measurement of CEC by flow cytometry and could help evaluate CEC as biomarkers of anti-angiogenic therapies in large cohorts of patients.