Isolation and initial identification of tumor stem-like cells from human prostatic carcinoma cell line PC-3 / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To isolate and identify prostate cancer stem-like cells from human prostatic carcinoma cell line PC-3,in order to set a foundation for further investigation of human prostate cancer stem cells (hPCSC). Methods Prostatic carcinoma cells line PC-3 was cultivated in serum-free medium (SFM) supplemented with growth factor,with the same cells cultivated in serum-supplemented medium (SSM) supplemented with growth factor to serve as the control. The proportion of prostate cancer stem-like cells was detected by flow cytometry,and prostate cancer stem-alike cells were identified by cell immunofluorescence,then the proliferating potentiality and doubling time with prostatic carcinoma cells PC-3 were compared by MTT. The process of inducing differentiation and the dual immunofluorescence expression after differentiation of prostate cancer stem-alike cells were observed. Results In SFM consisting of human epidermal growth factor (EGF),human basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and human leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF),a few PC-3 cells could survive and form suspended cell spheres,and the proportion of prostate cancer stem-alike cells (1.43%) was significantly increased compared with that cultured in SSM (0.41%,P