Department of Dental Hygiene, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e31864. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0031864. Epub 2012 Feb 16.
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play an important role in tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis and are responsible for high therapeutic failure rates. Identification and characterization of CSC are crucial for facilitating the monitoring, therapy, or prevention of cancer. Great efforts have been paid to develop a more effective methodology. Nevertheless, the ideal model for CSC research is still evolving. In this study, we created a nonadhesive culture system to enrich CSCs from human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines with sphere formation and to characterize their CSC properties further.
A nonadhesive culture system was designed to generate spheres from the SAS and OECM-1 cell lines. A subsequent investigation of their CSC properties, including stemness, self-renewal, and chemo- and radioresistance in vitro, as well as tumor initiation capacity in vivo, was also performed.
Spheres were formed cost-effectively and time-efficiently within 5 to 7 days. Moreover, we proved that these spheres expressed putative stem cell markers and exhibited chemoradiotherapeutic resistance, in addition to tumor-initiating and self-renewal capabilities.
Using this nonadhesive culture system, we successfully established a rapid and cost-effective model that exhibits the characteristics of CSCs and can be used in cancer research.
癌症干细胞（CSCs）在肿瘤的发生、发展和转移中起着重要作用，是导致高治疗失败率的原因。CSC 的鉴定和表征对于促进癌症的监测、治疗或预防至关重要。人们已经付出了巨大的努力来开发更有效的方法。然而，CSC 研究的理想模型仍在不断发展。在本研究中，我们创建了一种无黏附培养系统，通过球体形成从人口腔鳞状细胞癌细胞系中富集 CSC，并进一步表征其 CSC 特性。
设计了一种无黏附培养系统，以从 SAS 和 OECM-1 细胞系中生成球体。随后，我们还研究了它们的 CSC 特性，包括体外的干性、自我更新、化疗和放疗耐药性，以及体内的肿瘤起始能力。
球体在 5 至 7 天内高效且经济地形成。此外，我们证明这些球体表达了推测的干细胞标志物，并表现出化疗和放疗耐药性，以及肿瘤起始和自我更新能力。
使用这种无黏附培养系统，我们成功建立了一种快速且经济有效的模型，该模型具有 CSC 的特征，可用于癌症研究。
