Cancer Biology

[Abstract] Glioma stem cells (GSC) grown as neurospheres exhibit similar characteristics to neural stem cells (NSC) grown as neurospheres, including the ability to self-renew and differentiate. GSCs are thought to play a role in cancer initiation and progression. Self-renewal potential of GSCs is thought to reflect many characteristics associated with ...

[Abstract] Self-renewal is the ability of cells to replicate themselves at every cell cycle. Throughout self-renewal in normal tissue homeostasis, stem cell number is maintained constant throughout life. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) share this ability with normal tissue stem cells and the sphere formation assay (SFA) is the gold standard assay to assess stem ...

[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 ...

[Abstract] Self-renewing cells from adult tissue (such as bone) that represent a progenitor population can be grown in suspension cultures in the presence of defined serum-free medium. Progenitor cells can be identified by this property of anchorage-independent growth in suspension cultures. These spherical clusters of progenitor bone cells growing under ...