Abstract
The cancer stem cell hypothesis is becoming more widely accepted as a model for carcinogenesis. Tumours are heterogeneous both at the molecular and cellular level, containing a small population of cells that possess highly tumourigenic “stem-cell” properties. Cancer stem cells (CSCs), or tumour-initiating cells, have the ability to self-renew, generate xenografts reminiscent of the primary tumour that they were derived from, and are chemoresistant. The characterisation of the CSC population within a tumour that drives its growth could provide novel target therapeutics against these cells specifically, eradicating the cancer completely. There have been several reports describing the isolation of putative cancer stem cell populations in several cancers; however, no defined set of markers has been identified that conclusively characterises “stem-like” cancer cells. This paper highlights the current experimental approaches that have been used in the field and discusses their limitations, with specific emphasis on the identification and characterisation of the CSC population in epithelial ovarian cancer.
Highlights
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the sixth most lethal malignancy in women in the western world
Whilst there are no established protocols for isolating pure populations of Cancer stem cells (CSCs), the general aim of many studies has been to enrich for cell populations that show features that are characteristic of normal stem cells, primarily the ability to self-renew and differentiate into different lineages
In a typical tumour sphere assay, cells from a primary tumour or cancer cell line are dissociated into a single cell suspension and cultured in a serum-free growth factorrich medium containing primarily epidermal growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF)
Summary
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the sixth most lethal malignancy in women in the western world. Over 90% of malignant tumours are epithelial. The identification of molecular markers that target chemoresistance may represent suitable targets for new therapeutic approaches for epithelial ovarian cancers (EOC). One hypothesis is that cancers are driven by a subset of highly tumourigenic cells with stem cell properties within the tumour, cancer stem cells (CSCs). As the term CSC is most commonly used in the literature to describe these cells, for the purpose of this paper, tumourigenic cancer cells with stem cell properties will be referred to as CSC. According to this model, only the CSCs, but not the remaining cells in the tumour, can propagate tumourigenesis. CSCs have been implicated in tumour initiation, progression, metastasis, and drug resistance
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