Original Article


CD133-positive tumor cell content is a predictor of early recurrence in colorectal cancer

Sung Hee Lim, Jiryeon Jang, Joon Oh Park, Kyoung-Mee Kim, Seung Tae Kim, Young Suk Park, Jeeyun Lee, Hee Cheol Kim

Abstract

Background: The aims of this study were to demonstrate the tumorigenicity of CD133+ colon cancer cells in vitro, analyze the correlations between spheroid formation and clinicopathologic variables, and screen for overexpressed genes in CD133+ colon cancer stem cells. Moreover, the aim of this study was to establish a living tumor tissue bank using surgically resected specimens.
Methods: Using LoVo cell line, we isolated CD133+ cells and performed clonogenic assay and animal experiment to test tumorigeneicity of CD133+ cells. Twenty-nine surgical samples were freshly collected from 27 patients who received curative or palliative surgery, and the samples were mechanically and enzymatically dissociated into single cells.
Results: We confirmed the enhanced tumorigeneicity of CD133+ cells isolated from LoVo cell line both in vitro and ,in vivo. Of these 29 samples, 8 (28%) contained >3% CD133+ cells. Sphere formation was significantly higher in samples from patients with lymphatic invasion than in those without lymphatic invasion [54.5% (6/11) vs. 12.5% (2/16); P=0.033] and in samples containing >3% of CD133+ cells than in those containing ≤3% of CD133+ cells [36.4% (4/11) vs. 0% (0/16); P=0.019].
Conclusions: These findings indicate that CD133 is a valid marker for identifying cancer stem cells from fresh surgically resected colorectal cancer tissues. Furthermore, we successfully established a living tumor tissue bank using surgically resected colorectal tissues with a viability of >70%.

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