Sorting methods of breast cancer stem cells / 国际肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the theory of cancer stem cells has provided a new perspective on the treatment of cancers including breast cancer. The accurate sorting of breast cancer stem cells is critical. The sorting procedure is consist of 4 steps: isolation of side population, serum-free suspension culture,determination of specific cell surface markers and of the activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 ( ALDH1 ) enzymatic through the ALDEFLUOR assay. Some studies choose drug resistance as an additional method for sorting cancer stem cells because of the enrichment of cancer stem cells after chemotherapy . The controversy about the sorting outcome of breast cancer stem cell mainly focus on molecular markers like CD44+ CD24- and ALDH1+ . The problem needed to be settled is to identify which sorting method and markers are appropriate.