Functional analysis of cancer stem cell/side population in non-small lung cancer cells

由于干细胞似乎参与了肿瘤的发生和化疗的耐药，肿瘤干细胞的功能分析对于建立早期发现和/或有效治疗非小细胞肺癌的方法非常重要。在本研究中，我们试图鉴定出具有肿瘤干细胞特性和与干细胞相关的重要分子的细胞群体。我们发现在无血清和贴壁依赖的培养条件下形成的球体对于干细胞群体的选择是有希望的，并且上皮细胞黏附分子(EpCAM)在癌细胞的存活中起着重要的作用。

Functional analysis of cancer stem cell is very important to establish the method of early detection and/or effective therapy for the non-small cell lung cancer since stem cells seem to be involved carcinogenesis and the resistance for the chemotherapy. In this study, we try to identify the cell populations that have cancer stem cell property and important molecule related with stem cells. We fund that the formation of sphere in serum free and anchorage-dependent culture condition was promising for the selection of stem cells population, and that epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) play the important roll in survival of cancer cells.