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Author:
Date:
2013-02-05
[Abstract] A tumorsphere is a solid, spherical formation developed from the proliferation of one cancer stem/progenitor cell. These tumorspheres (Figure 1a) are easily distinguishable from single or aggregated cells (Figure 1b) as the cells appear to become fused together and individual cells cannot be identified. Cells are grown in serum-free, non-adherent conditions in order to enrich the cancer stem/progenitor cell population as only cancer stem/progenitor cells can survive and proliferate in this environment. This assay can be used to estimate the percentage of cancer stem/progenitor cells present in a population of tumor cells. The size, which can vary from less than 50 micrometers to 250 micrometers, and number of tumorspheres formed can be used to characterize the cancer stem/progenitor cell ...
[摘要] 肿瘤球是从一个癌干细胞/祖细胞的增殖形成的固体，球形形式。这些肿瘤球（图1a）易于与单个或聚集的细胞（图1b）区分开，因为细胞看起来融合在一起并且不能鉴定个体细胞。细胞在无血清，非粘附条件下生长以富集癌干细胞/祖细胞群，因为只有癌干/祖细胞可在这种环境中存活和增殖。该测定可用于估计存在于肿瘤细胞群中的癌干细胞/祖细胞的百分比。可以从小于50微米至250微米变化的大小和形成的肿瘤球的数目可以用于表征体外培养的癌细胞群内的癌干/祖细胞群，以及在体内肿瘤（Lo等人，2012; Liu等人，2009）。虽然几种细胞系可用于肿瘤球形成测定（例如来自Her2/neu转基因小鼠，MCF7，BT474和HCC1954的原发性乳腺肿瘤细胞），但一些细胞系可能不形成典型的肿瘤球结构，并且可能难以计数或最终分类为肿瘤球。
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