Effective Drug Concentration and Selectivity Depends on Fraction of Primitive Cells.

Poor efficiency of chemotherapeutics in the eradication of Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) has been driving the search for more active and specific compounds. In this work, we show how cell density-dependent stage culture profiles can be used in drug development workflows to achieve more robust drug activity (IC and EC) results. Using flow cytometry and light microscopy, we characterized the cytological stage profiles of the HL-60-, A-549-, and HEK-293-derived sublines with a focus on their primitive cell content.