In Pursuit of Prostate Cancer Stem Cells
Abstract
Recently, various human tumors have been shown to contain cancer stem cells. These cells, although rare, appear to be the only cells that can regenerate tumor and mediate metastasis. Therefore, these rare cancer stem cells may be the only cells that actually matter to a tumor and to therapeutic interventions. Of great interest, these putative cancer stem cells preferentially express markers that are expressed on normal stem/progenitor cells. Prostate cancer (PCa) stem cells have not been definitively identified. Recently, I identified several populations of PCa stem/progenitor cells with different tumorigenicities and primitiveness in human PCa xenografts and cell lines. In this study, we seek to reevaluate the relevancy of my findings in human PCa samples. At present, we have worked with 25 human PCa samples of varying Gleason grades to set up tumorigenicity assays to test tumorigenic potential of CD133 and CD44-positive cells. Importantly, we have performed our homework in terms of fine-tuning conditions to give us prostatospheres and establish primary xenografts in order to carry out our proposed experiments. Preliminary in vitro experiments indicate that CD133 could mark self-renewing PCa stem-like cells in primary PCa samples. We currently have a number of tumorigenicity experiments in incubation and expect to obtain a readout within the next couple of months. We also expect to begin studies on the invasive and metastatic potentials of the populations sorted for our markers of interest in the near future.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA483285
Entities
People
- Lubna Patrawala
Organizations
- University of Texas at Austin