Suspension culture combined with chemotherapeutic agents for sorting of breast cancer stem cells.

Background: Cancer stem cell (CSC) hypothesis has not been well demonstrated by the lack of the most convincing evidence concerning a single cell capable of giving rise to a tumor. The scarcity in quantity and improper approaches for isolation and purification of CSCs have become the major obstacles for great development in CSCs. Here we adopted suspension culture combined with anticancer regimens as a strategy for screening breast cancer stem cells (BrCSCs).

Suspension culture combined with anticancer regimens for screening breast cancer stem cells.

Breast cancer stem cells (BrCSCs)have been first identified in solid tumors. To be more exact, they are defined as tumorigenic cancer cells which exhibit the capacity to form tumors distinct from the majority non-tumorigenic cancer cells. However it is only a minor subset that cancer stem cells are highly enriched in.

Caspase-8 in apoptosis of hepatoma cell induced by 5-fluorouracil.

Objective: To explore the relationship between the changes in the activity of caspase-8 and apoptosis of HepG2 cells induced by 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu).

Methods: Human hepatoma HepG2 cells were treated with 5-Fu at the concentrations of 1X10(-1), 1X10(-2), 1X10(-3), 1X10(-4), 1X10(-5) mol/L and for 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24 hours, respectively. The caspase-8 activity was detected using caspase-8 fluorescent assay kit.