Analysis of cancer stem cells using three dimension culture system

肿瘤干细胞在细胞生长、侵袭、转移、耐药和复发等方面发挥着重要作用。传统的细胞培养方法在准确模拟体内环境的能力方面受到限制。因此，肿瘤干细胞的体外分析一直比较困难。在本研究中，我们比较了球体培养系统中的肿瘤干细胞和血液中的循环癌细胞。胰腺癌球细胞生长减慢，细胞迁移增加，体内成瘤，干细胞标志物Nestin、CD44、ABCG2和ePhin表达增加。小鼠血液中的循环癌细胞显示EGFR增加。需要进一步的研究来检测和分析癌症干细胞。

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.