Ovarian Carcinoma Stem Cells
Abstract
Ovarian carcinoma is one of the most responsive solid tumors, with the majority of affected women now achieving complete remissions; unfortunately, most of these women eventually relapse and die from the disease. We hypothesized that the initial clinical responses represent therapeutic effectiveness against differentiated cancer cells making up the bulk of the tumor, while the high rate of relapses result from rare, biologically distinct resistant cancer stem cells (CSC). The limited understanding about the phenotype of normal ovarian epithelial stem cells is an obstacle to identifying ovarian CSC, if they exist. However, several characteristics that appear to be shared by normal stem cells from many tissues may serve as markers for CSC from many malignancies. We have developed one of the first true animal models of ovarian cancer, FNAR, a primary rat ovarian cancer that arose spontaneously (submitted for publication). FNAR parallels the human disease both biologically [expresses Her2/neu, estrogen receptors (ER) and androgen receptors (PR)] and clinically. The pan-stem cell marker ALDH expression appears to identify a CSC subpopulation from the FNAR cells, as the 2-4% of the cells expressing high levels of ALDH are enriched for both in vitro and in vivo clonogenic potential.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA508216
Entities
People
- Richard N Jones
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University