Our results have shown that different EMT phenotypes of CTCs (epithelial, epithelial-mesenchymal and mesenchymal) can be distinguished in CTCs-EBF of early breast cancer using a panel of 7 genes (MGB1/HER2/CK19/CDH1/CDH2/VIM/PLS3) tested in qPCR. Here, PLS3 is linked to breast carcinoma.