Abstract
Although cancers are widely considered to be maintained by stem cells, the existence of stem cells in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has seldom been reported, in part due to the lack of unique surface markers. We here identified cancer stem cell-like cells with side population (SP) phenotype in five human RCC cell lines. Flow cytometry analysis revealed that 769P, a human clear cell RCC cell line, contained the largest amount of SP cells as compared with other four cell lines. These 769P SP cells possessed characteristics of proliferation, self-renewal, and differentiation, as well as strong resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy that were possibly related to the ABCB1 transporter. In vivo experiments with serial tumor transplantation in mice also showed that 769P SP cells formed tumors in NOD/SCID mice. Taken together, these results indicate that 769P SP cells have the properties of cancer stem cells, which may play important roles in tumorigenesis and therapy-resistance of RCC.
Publication types
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Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
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ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B
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ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1 / genetics
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Animals
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Carcinoma, Renal Cell / genetics
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Carcinoma, Renal Cell / pathology*
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Cell Differentiation / genetics
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Cell Growth Processes / genetics
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Cell Line, Tumor
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Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / genetics
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Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / pathology
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Drug Resistance, Neoplasm
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Female
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Humans
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Kidney Neoplasms / genetics
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Kidney Neoplasms / pathology*
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Mice
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Mice, Inbred NOD
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Mice, SCID
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Neoplasm Transplantation
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Neoplastic Stem Cells / pathology*
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Side-Population Cells / pathology*
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Transplantation, Heterologous
Substances
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ABCB1 protein, human
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ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B
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ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1
Grants and funding
This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation (No. 81272809, No. 80202011, No. 81202013, No. 30872584); Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (No. 8251008901000018, No. S2012040007557); Sun Yat-sen Innovative Talents Cultivation Program for Excellent Tutors (No. 80000-3126205); Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (No. 2011B050400021, No. 2012B090600021, No. 445323198311050317); and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Urology, the first affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (No. 2010A060801016). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.