Fig. 8

CTC analyses. a Representative photomicrographs under bright field of CTCs isolated and cultured blood from mice blood. b Corresponding fluorescence image to demonstrate RFP tagging in CTCs. c Representative photomicrographs of CTCs after crystal violet staining. d–f As negative controls, blood taken from naïve mice was also processed and cultured, and images were obtained to show the absence of CTCs. g Coloured bar graphs of the mean value of all four mice for each group for CTC numbers. h Averaged values of the mean number of CTCs for each woman according to the type of input material. CTC Circulating tumour cell, HMD High mammographic density, LMD Low mammographic density, DCIS MCF10DCIS.com cells, RFP Red fluorescent protein. All bar and scatterplot graphs represent mean ± SEM. Scale bar = 50 μm