Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
Neoplasma. 2011;58(1):20-6. doi: 10.4149/neo_2011_01_20.
The existence of cancer stem and progenitor cells in solid tumors has been widely postulated. However, neither the cancer stem cells nor the cancer progenitor cells have been definitively identified and functionally characterized. Here we propose a new strategy to identify and isolate gastric cancer stem cells -using omental milky spots to screen gastric cancer stem cells in peritoneal metastasis mouse models of gastric cancer. In this study, we used the property that the macrophages in omental milky spots are cytotoxic against tumor cells and so able to screen and collect cancer stem cells. Our findings suggest that macrophages in omental milky spots have not only cytotoxic properties against tumor cells but also provide a microenvironment within milky spots in which cancer stem cells are capable to survive and grow into micrometastasis. Omental milky spot become a cancer stem cell niche in this situation. Further we studied the omental milky spots for screening gastric cancer cells (OMSS-GCCs) and found that omental milky spot enriched the volume of gastric cancer stem cells. Tumors were consistently generated after an injection of 1×103 OMSS-GCCs. OMSS-GCCs high express CD133 and low express CD324. Omental milky spots are a highly efficient "natural filter" for screening gastric cancer stem cells.
实体瘤中存在癌症干细胞和祖细胞这一观点已得到广泛认同。然而，癌症干细胞和癌症祖细胞尚未被明确鉴定和功能表征。在此，我们提出了一种新的策略，用以鉴定和分离胃癌干细胞——利用大网膜乳斑来筛选胃癌腹膜转移模型中的胃癌干细胞。在本研究中，我们利用大网膜乳斑中的巨噬细胞对肿瘤细胞具有细胞毒性这一特性，从而能够筛选和收集癌症干细胞。我们的研究结果表明，大网膜乳斑中的巨噬细胞不仅对肿瘤细胞具有细胞毒性，而且还提供了一个微环境，使癌症干细胞能够在其中存活并生长为微转移。在这种情况下，大网膜乳斑成为了癌症干细胞的龛位。进一步地，我们研究了大网膜乳斑以筛选胃癌细胞（OMSS-GCCs），并发现大网膜乳斑富集了胃癌干细胞的数量。注入 1×103 个 OMSS-GCCs 后，肿瘤持续生成。OMSS-GCCs 高表达 CD133，低表达 CD324。大网膜乳斑是筛选胃癌干细胞的高效“天然滤器”。
