Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to be a group of cells within tumor tissues that are resistant to standard chemotherapy and the main cause for relapse. Typically identified by cell surface markers (e.g. CD44, CD24), CSC cells belong to a minority population among cancer cells, which are difficult to obtain or maintain. There have been several NIH programs soliciting novel methods of isolating CSCs for functional studies and screen for therapies.
Sajithlal et al. reported in Stem Cells that by introducing an Oct3/4 promoter-GFP construct in an attempt to follow CSCs among MCF7 breast cancer cells, they unexpectedly found out that this construct blocked differentiation of CSCs and maintained their signature cell surface marker expression profile. It is not easy to explain how a promoter (assuming the expressed GFP has nothing to do with the effects of this construct) would block differentiation, however, the authors did speculate that it could be some ORFs or small RNAs encoded within the 4 kb promoter region, or its competition with endogenous promoter. They went on to test the same construct in several other breast cancer cell lines and found similar results. It remains unclear whether it would be true in other cancer types, isolated cancer cells instead of cell lines, or if other stem cell specific promoters, such as Nanog promoter, would have similar effects.
For those who are interested in CSCs, this new finding should be of great interest for theoretical as well as practical reasons.
STEM CELLS 2010;28:1008–1018 www.StemCells.com, photo courtesy
AlleleNews JW
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