Metastatic colon cancer cell populations contain more cancer stem-like cells with a higher susceptibility to natural killer cell-mediated lysis compared with primary colon cancer cells.

In the present study, the soft agar clonogenicity and the susceptibility of clonogenic cancer cells to natural killer (NK) cells were compared between primary colon cancer cells (KM12C) and metastatic colon cancer cells (KM12L4a and KM12SM) to determine whether the metastatic cancer cells consisted of more cancer stem-like cells and were resistant to NK cell-mediated lysis. The majority of colon cancer cells were positive for putative cancer stem cell markers, including CD44, CD133 and EpCAM, with the exception of KM12C cells, of which only ~55% were positive for CD133. In addition, the expression levels of sex determining region Y-box 2, Nanog and octamer-binding transcription factor 4, which are essential for maintaining self-renewal, were higher in KM12L4a and KM12SM compared with that in KM12C cells. Consistently, an increased clonogenicity of KM12L4a and KM12SM compared with KM12C cells in soft agar was observed. The expression levels of NKG2D ligands, including major histocompatibility complex class I polypeptide-related sequence A/B and UL16 binding protein 2, and of death receptor 5 were significantly higher in KM12L4a and KM12SM than in KM12C cells. Furthermore, the results indicated an increased susceptibility of KM12L4a and KM12SM to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity in comparison with KM12C cells. These results indicated that metastatic colon cancer cell populations may consist of more cancer stem-like cells, and have greater susceptibility to NK cell-mediated lysis compared with that of primary colon cancers.