Origin and Properties of Prostatic Stem Cells
Abstract
The aim of this proposal is to isolate and characterize prostatic epithelial stem cells. This will be done as stem cell and tumor cell biology may be closely linked and stem cells may have a role in the etiology of cancer. Stem cells and tumor cells have many common features including self-renewal, multi-drug resistance, telomerase expression and, in the instance of the prostate, androgen independence. Stem cells from a variety of tissues have been shown to actively efflux the Hoechst dye 33342 through the activity of multi- drugresistance-like proteins and this property has been used to characterize and isolate them as a side population (SP). Our results show that the dorsal prostate contains a small population of cells (0.65%) capable of effluxing the Hoechst dye by an active process (the side population), indicating that cells with features of stem cells are found in the prostate. In addition we show that 96% of the SP cells express Sca-l, a protein expressed by stem cells of other origins. Most of the Sca-l expressing cells also express (6 integrin which is also found on many primitive cell types. We also show that SP cells have a greater proliferative capacity than non-SP cells as expected if SP cells are of more primitive origin than non-SP cells.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA433877
Entities
People
- Elaine L. Wilson
Organizations
- New York University