Conclusions
The data presented suggest that CSF could be a useful tool for diagnosing and assessing disease severity.
Methods
The detection of cellular analytes with the non-enrichment high-definition single-cell assay (HDSCA3.0) workflow was compared between the CSF and matched peripheral blood (PB) samples.
Results
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were detected in the CSF but not the PB and were subsequently molecularly characterized using single-cell genomics and targeted multiplexed proteomics to reveal a clonal population of phenotypically heterogeneous cells. There was a lack of concordance in the copy number alteration profiles between CTCs and cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in the CSF. Extracellular vesicle surface marker analysis in CSF revealed a prominent signal among tetraspanins (CD9/CD63/CD81), with CD81 exhibiting the highest signal across all patients. Conclusions: The data presented suggest that CSF could be a useful tool for diagnosing and assessing disease severity.