Analysis of cancer stem cells using three dimension culture system

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Cancer stem cells play important roles on cell growth, invasion, metastasis, resistance to therapy and recurrence. Conventional cell culture methods are limited in their ability to mimic in vivo environments exactly. Therefore, it has been difficult to analyze cancer stem cells in vitro. In the present study, we compared cancer stem cells in sphere culture system and circulating cancer cells in the blood. Pancreatic cancer sphere cells showed a decrease of cell growth, and an increase of cell migration, tumor formation in vivo, expression of stem cell markers such as nestin, CD44 and ABCG2, and ephrin. Circulating cancer cells in mice blood showed an increase of EGFR. Further study is needed to detectand analyze cancer stem cells.