The Relationship of Galectin-1 and Neuroblastoma Stem Cells

Abstract

Introduction : Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid tumor of childhood. It originates from the primordial neural crest cells. The cancer stem cell (CSC) are a small population of tumor cells, termed CSCs that have the ability to proliferate and maintain tumor growth. CSCs have two main characteristics: self- renewal and differentiation. Galectin-1 (Gal-1) has important roles in the cell adhesion and growth, apoptosis, immunomodulation, metastasis, inflammation and mRNA splicing. In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression of Gal-1 in the CD133+ stem cells of two neuroblastoma cell lines with different prognostic characteristics in comparison with their CD133- cells. Materials and Method : We cultured neuroblastoma cell lines SH-SY5Y (N-myc negative) and Kelly (N-myc positive) in DMEM and RPMI 1640 mediums and cultivated in an incubator equipped with 5% CO2 at 37°C. We isolated CD133+ neuroblastoma stem cells with magnetic beads. We spreaded the isolated CD133+ and CD133- Kelly and SHSY5Y neuroblastoma cells onto the polylysine-coated slides and stained with Gal-1 immunocytochemically. We counted 50 different 100 cells for each group and evaluated Gal-1 expression as positive (middle and high expression) and negative (weak and no expression). The results were statistically analyzed with the Mann-Whitney U non-parametric test. Results : The control cells had included both of the CD133+ and CD133- cells. When we evaluated Gal-1 expressions in control cells, Kelly control cells showed more Gal-1 expression than SHSY5Y control cells and this higher expression was more obvious in CD133+ Kelly stem cells. Gal-1 expression in CD133- cells (other cells) was very low. When we evaluated Gal-1 expression in CD133+ SHSY5Y stem cells and in CD133- other SHSY5Y cells, we did not determine a significant difference between them.