Suetsugu Atsushi, Nagaki Masahito, Aoki Hitomi, Motohashi Tsutomu, Kunisada Takahiro, Moriwaki Hisataka
Department of Gastroenterology, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu 501 1194, Japan.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2006 Dec 29;351(4):820-4. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2006.10.128. Epub 2006 Nov 2.
The CD133 antigen, identified as a hematopoietic stem cell marker, appears in various human embryonic epithelia including the neural tube, gut, and kidney. We herein investigated whether CD133(+) cells isolated from human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines possess cancer stem/progenitor cell-like properties. Among the three cell lines studied, the CD133 antigen was found to be expressed only on the surface of Huh-7 cells. CD133(+) cells from Huh-7 performed a higher in vitro proliferative potential and lower mRNA expressions of mature hepatocyte markers, glutamine synthetase and cytochrome P450 3A4, than CD133(-) population of Huh-7 cells. When either CD133(+) or CD133(-) cells were subcutaneously injected into SCID mice, CD133(+) cells formed tumors, whereas CD133(-) cells induced either a very small number of tumors or none at all. Taken together, the identification of CD133(+) cells could thus be a potentially powerful tool to investigate the tumorigenic process in the hepatoma system and to also develop effective therapies targeted against hepatocellular carcinoma.
CD133抗原被鉴定为造血干细胞标志物，出现在包括神经管、肠道和肾脏在内的各种人类胚胎上皮中。我们在此研究了从人肝癌细胞系中分离出的CD133(+)细胞是否具有癌干细胞/祖细胞样特性。在所研究的三种细胞系中，发现CD133抗原仅在Huh-7细胞表面表达。与Huh-7细胞的CD133(-)群体相比，来自Huh-7的CD133(+)细胞具有更高的体外增殖潜能，且成熟肝细胞标志物谷氨酰胺合成酶和细胞色素P450 3A4的mRNA表达较低。当将CD133(+)或CD133(-)细胞皮下注射到SCID小鼠体内时，CD133(+)细胞形成肿瘤，而CD133(-)细胞要么诱导出极少量肿瘤，要么根本不诱导肿瘤。综上所述，CD133(+)细胞的鉴定可能是研究肝癌系统致瘤过程以及开发针对肝细胞癌的有效疗法的潜在有力工具。
