Breast cancer stem cells：separation and resistance protein analysis / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Breast cancer stem cels are relatively special cels in the body, which have the self-renewal and multi-differentiation ability to promote tumor formation and development, and maintain tumor growth for a long-term. Therefore, it is of great significance to analyze the expression of resistance proteins of breast cancer stem cels. OBJECTIVE:To isolate breast cancer stem cels from human breast cancer tissues, to observe their differentiation and morphology characteristics and to analyze their resistance proteins. METHODS:Thirty tumor samples of breast invasive ductal carcinoma were selected to separate single cel suspension using mechanical separation method, and breast cancer stem cels and differentiated cels were sorted with two-step immunomagnetic bead method. Two-step immunocytochemistry method was used to detect the expression of resistance proteins in breast cancer stem cels. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Percentage of breast cancer stem cels had no significant correlations with age, long diameter of the tumor, lymph node metastasis and histological grading (P > 0.05). P-gp and GST-π positive rates in the breast cancer stem cels were significantly higher than those in the differentiated cels (P < 0.05); while TopoII and LRP positive rates in the breast cancer stem cels were significantly lower than those in the differentiated cels (P < 0.05). To conclude, breast cancer stem cels show stronger drug resistance than the differentiated cels by highly expressing P-gp and GST-π and lowly expressing TopoII and LRP, which may be the key reason for chemotherapy resistance in breast cancer.