Kamalabadi-Farahani Mohammad, Kia Vahid, Doodi Shaghayegh, Dylami Sadegh
Department of Tissue Engineering, School of Medicine, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences Shahroud, Iran.
Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Medicine, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences Shahroud, Iran.
Am J Stem Cells. 2023 Aug 15;12(3):60-64. eCollection 2023.
Breast cancer stem like cells (CSCs) as a subset of cancer cells exhibit similar properties with normal stem cells. These cells are responsible for cancer metastasis and recurrence. Pivotal roles of CXCR4 in metastasis, chemoresistance and stemness of tumor cells have been showed previously. Here, we aim to explore the relationship between CXCR4 and CSCs in primary and metastatic breast tumor cells.
Primary and highly metastatic breast tumor cells were isolated in our laboratory. Spheroid formation was used to confirm the presence of CSCs and their self-renewal capability. CXCR4 expression was evaluated using real-time polymerase chain reaction in monolayer culture and multicellular spheroids. Our data showed that in all tested cells, CXCR4 expression was significantly increased in CSCs. In parallel, compared with primary tumor cells, downregulation of CXCR4 in metastatic tumor cells was confirmed.
These results provided new insights related to significant alteration of CXCR4 expression in multicellular spheroids. Analysis of molecular properties of spheroids could be used to detect molecular and genetic aspects of CSCs and also created a targeted therapeutic strategy against breast CSCs.
乳腺癌干细胞（CSCs）作为癌细胞的一个亚群，表现出与正常干细胞相似的特性。这些细胞导致癌症转移和复发。先前已表明CXCR4在肿瘤细胞的转移、化疗耐药性和干性中起关键作用。在此，我们旨在探讨原发性和转移性乳腺肿瘤细胞中CXCR4与CSCs之间的关系。
我们实验室分离出原发性和高转移性乳腺肿瘤细胞。采用球体形成法来确认CSCs的存在及其自我更新能力。在单层培养和多细胞球体中使用实时聚合酶链反应评估CXCR4表达。我们的数据表明，在所有测试细胞中，CSCs中CXCR4表达显著增加。同时，与原发性肿瘤细胞相比，转移性肿瘤细胞中CXCR4表达下调得到证实。
这些结果为多细胞球体中CXCR4表达的显著改变提供了新的见解。对球体分子特性的分析可用于检测CSCs的分子和遗传方面，也为针对乳腺CSCs的靶向治疗策略提供了依据。
