A preliminary study of side population cells in human gastric cancer cell line HGC-27.

Background: Cancer stem cell-like side population (SP) cells, which may be responsible for recurrence, tumor metastasis, and resistance to cancer therapy, have been identified and characterized in several types of cell lines from gastric cancer. However, there is no report on isolation of SP cells from human gastric cancer cell line HGC-27. This study aims to analyze the proportion of SP cells in HGC-27 cell line, differentiate SP from non-side population (NSP) cells, and determine whether the SP cells have certain biological properties of stem cells.