scholarly journals Lineage tracing of Notch1-expressing cells in intestinal tumours reveals a distinct population of cancer stem cells

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Mourao ◽  
Guillaume Jacquemin ◽  
Mathilde Huyghe ◽  
Wojciech J. Nawrocki ◽  
Naoual Menssouri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Tumour Cells ◽  
Lineage Tracing ◽  
Intestinal Stem Cells ◽  
Cellular Targets ◽  
Transcriptional Signature ◽  
Stem Cell Populations ◽  
Notch1 Receptor

AbstractColon tumours are hierarchically organized and contain multipotent self-renewing cells, called Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs). We have previously shown that the Notch1 receptor is expressed in Intestinal Stem Cells (ISCs); given the critical role played by Notch signalling in promoting intestinal tumourigenesis, we explored Notch1 expression in tumours. Combining lineage tracing in two tumour models with transcriptomic analyses, we found that Notch1 + tumour cells are undifferentiated, proliferative and capable of indefinite self-renewal and of generating a heterogeneous clonal progeny. Molecularly, the transcriptional signature of Notch1+ tumour cells highly correlates with ISCs, suggestive of their origin from normal crypt cells. Surprisingly, Notch1+ expression labels a subset of CSCs that show reduced levels of Lgr5, a reported CSCs marker. The existence of distinct stem cell populations within intestinal tumours highlights the necessity of better understanding their hierarchy and behaviour, to identify the correct cellular targets for therapy.

Rapid reprogramming of tumour cells into cancer stem cells on double-network hydrogels

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Suzuka ◽  
Masumi Tsuda ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Shinji Kohsaka ◽  
Karin Kishida ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Tumour Cells ◽  
Double Network

scholarly journals STEM-20. A CANCER STEM CELL-SELECTIVE APOPTOSIS-INDUCING SMALL MOLECULE FOR THE TREATMENT OF GBM

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. ii200-ii200
Author(s):  
Stephen Skirboll ◽  
Natasha Lucki ◽  
Genaro Villa ◽  
Naja Vergani ◽  
Michael Bollong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Small Molecules ◽  
Small Molecule ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Tumor Formation ◽  
Cell Type ◽  
Caspase 1 ◽  
Activation Assay

Abstract INTRODUCTION Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive form of primary brain cancer. A subpopulation of multipotent cells termed GBM cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a critical role in tumor initiation and maintenance, drug resistance, and recurrence following surgery. New therapeutic strategies for the treatment of GBM have recently focused on targeting CSCs. Here we have used an unbiased large-scale screening approach to identify drug-like small molecules that induce apoptosis in GBM CSCs in a cell type-selective manner. METHODS A luciferase-based survival assay of patient-derived GBM CSC lines was established to perform a large-scale screen of ∼one million drug-like small molecules with the goal of identifying novel compounds that are selectively toxic to chemoresistant GBM CSCs. Compounds found to kill GBM CSC lines as compared to control cell types were further characterized. A caspase activation assay was used to evaluate the mechanism of induced cell death. A xenograft animal model using patient-derived GBM CSCs was employed to test the leading candidate for suppression of in vivo tumor formation. RESULTS We identified a small molecule, termed RIPGBM, from the cell-based chemical screen that induces apoptosis in primary patient-derived GBM CSC cultures. The cell type-dependent selectivity of RIPGBM appears to arise at least in part from redox-dependent formation of a proapoptotic derivative, termed cRIPGBM, in GBM CSCs. cRIPGBM induces caspase 1-dependent apoptosis by binding to receptor-interacting protein kinase 2 (RIPK2) and acting as a molecular switch, which reduces the formation of a prosurvival RIPK2/TAK1 complex and increases the formation of a proapoptotic RIPK2/caspase 1 complex. In an intracranial GBM xenograft mouse model, RIPGBM was found to significantly suppress tumor formation. CONCLUSIONS Our chemical genetics-based approach has identified a small molecule drug candidate and a potential drug target that selectively targets cancer stem cells and provides an approach for the treatment of GBMs.

scholarly journals Taking a Step Back: Insights into the Mechanisms Regulating Gut Epithelial Dedifferentiation

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (13) ◽  
pp. 7043
Author(s):  
Shaida Ouladan ◽  
Alex Gregorieff
Keyword(s):  
Cell Fate ◽  
Hormonal Regulation ◽  
Transcriptional Profiling ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Lineage Tracing ◽  
Intestinal Stem Cells ◽  
Physical Damage ◽  
Epithelial Regeneration ◽  
Gut Epithelium ◽  
Stem Cell Populations

Despite the environmental constraints imposed upon the intestinal epithelium, this tissue must perform essential functions such as nutrient absorption and hormonal regulation, while also acting as a critical barrier to the outside world. These functions depend on a variety of specialized cell types that are constantly renewed by a rapidly proliferating population of intestinal stem cells (ISCs) residing at the base of the crypts of Lieberkühn. The niche components and signals regulating crypt morphogenesis and maintenance of homeostatic ISCs have been intensely studied over the last decades. Increasingly, however, researchers are turning their attention to unraveling the mechanisms driving gut epithelial regeneration due to physical damage or infection. It is now well established that injury to the gut barrier triggers major cell fate changes, demonstrating the highly plastic nature of the gut epithelium. In particular, lineage tracing and transcriptional profiling experiments have uncovered several injury-induced stem-cell populations and molecular markers of the regenerative state. Despite the progress achieved in recent years, several questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding the mechanisms driving dedifferentiation of the gut epithelium. In this review, we summarize the latest studies, primarily from murine models, that define the regenerative processes governing the gut epithelium and discuss areas that will require more in-depth investigation.

scholarly journals Quiescent, Slow-Cycling Stem Cell Populations in Cancer: A Review of the Evidence and Discussion of Significance

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Moore ◽  
Stephen Lyle
Keyword(s):  
Cell Cycle ◽  
Stem Cells ◽  
Stem Cell ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Adult Stem Cells ◽  
Cell Populations ◽  
Proliferative Potential ◽  
Cell Cycle Regulators ◽  
Slow Cycling ◽  
Stem Cell Populations

Long-lived cancer stem cells (CSCs) with indefinite proliferative potential have been identified in multiple epithelial cancer types. These cells are likely derived from transformed adult stem cells and are thought to share many characteristics with their parental population, including a quiescent slow-cycling phenotype. Various label-retaining techniques have been used to identify normal slow cycling adult stem cell populations and offer a unique methodology to functionally identify and isolate cancer stem cells. The quiescent nature of CSCs represents an inherent mechanism that at least partially explains chemotherapy resistance and recurrence in posttherapy cancer patients. Isolating and understanding the cell cycle regulatory mechanisms of quiescent cancer cells will be a key component to creation of future therapies that better target CSCs and totally eradicate tumors. Here we review the evidence for quiescent CSC populations and explore potential cell cycle regulators that may serve as future targets for elimination of these cells.

scholarly journals Identification of leukemic and pre-leukemic stem cells by clonal tracking from single-cell transcriptomics

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Velten ◽  
Benjamin A. Story ◽  
Pablo Hernández-Malmierca ◽  
Simon Raffel ◽  
Daniel R. Leonce ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Single Cell ◽  
Lineage Tracing ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Leukemic Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Mutational Status

AbstractCancer stem cells drive disease progression and relapse in many types of cancer. Despite this, a thorough characterization of these cells remains elusive and with it the ability to eradicate cancer at its source. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), leukemic stem cells (LSCs) underlie mortality but are difficult to isolate due to their low abundance and high similarity to healthy hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Here, we demonstrate that LSCs, HSCs, and pre-leukemic stem cells can be identified and molecularly profiled by combining single-cell transcriptomics with lineage tracing using both nuclear and mitochondrial somatic variants. While mutational status discriminates between healthy and cancerous cells, gene expression distinguishes stem cells and progenitor cell populations. Our approach enables the identification of LSC-specific gene expression programs and the characterization of differentiation blocks induced by leukemic mutations. Taken together, we demonstrate the power of single-cell multi-omic approaches in characterizing cancer stem cells.

Natural products targeting cancer stem cells: a revisit

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiahua Cui ◽  
Jiajun Qian ◽  
Larry Ming-Cheung Chow ◽  
Jinping Jia
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Drug Resistance ◽  
Natural Products ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Therapeutic Potential ◽  
Tumor Development ◽  
Biologically Active ◽  
Cellular Targets ◽  
Drug Candidates ◽  
Enhanced Expression

Background: The proposed central role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in tumor development has been extended to explain the diverse oncologic phenomena such as multidrug resistance, metastasis and tumor recurrence in clinics. Due to the enhanced expression of ATP-binding cassette transporters and anti-apoptotic factors, stagnation on G0 phase and the strong ability of self-renewal, the CSCs were highly resistant to clinical anticancer drugs. Therefore, the discovery of new drug candidates that could effectively eradicate cancer stem cells afforded promising outcomes in cancer therapy. Introduction: Natural products and their synthetic analogues are a rich source of biologically active compounds and several of them have already been recognized as potent CSCs killers. We aim to provide a collection of recently identified natural products that suppressed the survival of the small invasive CSC populations and combated the drug resistance of these cells in chemotherapy. Results and Conclusion: These anti-CSCs natural products included flavonoids, stilbenes, quinones, terpenoids, polyketide antibiotics, steroids and alkaloids. In the present review, we highlighted the therapeutic potential of natural products and their derivatives against the proliferation and drug resistance of CSCs, their working mechanisms and related structure-activity relationships. Meanwhile, in this survey, several natural products with diverse cellular targets such as the naphthoquinone shikonin and the stilbene resveratrol were characterized as promising lead compounds for future development.

scholarly journals The Wnt agonist R-spondin1 regulates systemic graft-versus-host disease by protecting intestinal stem cells

2011 ◽  
Vol 208 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuichiro Takashima ◽  
Masanori Kadowaki ◽  
Kazutoshi Aoyama ◽  
Motoko Koyama ◽  
Takeshi Oshima ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Graft Versus Host Disease ◽  
Intestinal Epithelium ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Intestinal Stem Cells ◽  
Allogeneic Bone ◽  
Gi Tract ◽  
Host Disease ◽  
Graft Versus Host ◽  
Allogeneic Bmt

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a major complication of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT), and damage to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract plays a critical role in amplifying systemic disease. Intestinal stem cells (ISCs) play a pivotal role not only in physiological tissue renewal but also in regeneration of the intestinal epithelium after injury. In this study, we have discovered that pretransplant conditioning regimen damaged ISCs; however, the ISCs rapidly recovered and restored the normal architecture of the intestine. ISCs are targets of GVHD, and this process of ISC recovery was markedly inhibited with the development of GVHD. Injection of Wnt agonist R-spondin1 (R-Spo1) protected against ISC damage, enhanced restoration of injured intestinal epithelium, and inhibited subsequent inflammatory cytokine cascades. R-Spo1 ameliorated systemic GVHD after allogeneic BMT by a mechanism dependent on repair of conditioning-induced GI tract injury. Our results demonstrate for the first time that ISC damage plays a central role in amplifying systemic GVHD; therefore, we propose ISC protection by R-Spo1 as a novel strategy to improve the outcome of allogeneic BMT.

scholarly journals Heritable tumor cell division rate heterogeneity induces clonal dominance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margriet M. Palm ◽  
Marjet Elemans ◽  
Joost B. Beltman
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Lineage Tracing ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Rate Heterogeneity ◽  
Division Rate ◽  
Cell Division Rate ◽  
Mutational Processes ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractTumors consist of a hierarchical population of cells that differ in their phenotype and genotype. This hierarchical organization of cells means that a few clones (i.e., cells and several generations of offspring) are abundant while most are rare, which is called clonal dominance. Such dominance also occurred in published in vitro iterated growth and passage experiments with tumor cells in which genetic barcodes were used for lineage tracing. A potential source for such heterogeneity is that dominant clones derive from cancer stem cells with an unlimited self-renewal capacity. Furthermore, ongoing evolution within the growing population may also induce clonal dominance. To understand how clonal dominance developed in the iterated growth and passage experiments, we built a computational model that accurately simulates these experiments. The model simulations reproduced the clonal dominance that developed in in vitro iterated growth and passage experiments when the division rates vary between cells, due to a combination of initial variation and of ongoing mutational processes. In contrast, the experimental results can neither be reproduced with a model that considers random growth and passage, nor with a model based on cancer stem cells. Altogether, our model suggests that in vitro clonal dominance develops due to selection of fast-dividing clones.

scholarly journals MicroRNA-28-5p Regulates Liver Cancer Stem Cell Expansion via IGF-1 Pathway

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Xia ◽  
Tao Han ◽  
Pinghua Yang ◽  
Ruoyu Wang ◽  
Hengyu Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Cancer Stem Cells ◽  
Liver Cancer ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Self Renewal ◽  
Sorafenib Treatment ◽  
The Impact

Background. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role in the regulation of cancer stem cells (CSCs). However, the role of miRNAs in liver CSCs has not been fully elucidated. Methods. Real-time PCR was used to detect the expression of miR-miR-28-5p in liver cancer stem cells (CSCs). The impact of miR-28-5p on liver CSC expansion was investigated both in vivo and in vitro. The correlation between miR-28-5p expression and sorafenib benefits in HCC was further evaluated in patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). Results. Our data showed that miR-28-5p was downregulated in sorted EpCAM- and CD24-positive liver CSCs. Biofunctional investigations revealed that knockdown miR-28-5p promoted liver CSC self-renewal and tumorigenesis. Consistently, miR-28-5p overexpression inhibited liver CSC’s self-renewal and tumorigenesis. Mechanistically, we found that insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) was a direct target of miR-28-5p in liver CSCs, and the effects of miR-28-5p on liver CSC’s self-renewal and tumorigenesis were dependent on IGF-1. The correlation between miR-28-5p and IGF-1 was confirmed in human HCC tissues. Furthermore, the miR-28-5p knockdown HCC cells were more sensitive to sorafenib treatment. Analysis of patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) further demonstrated that the miR-28-5p may predict sorafenib benefits in HCC patients. Conclusion. Our findings revealed the crucial role of the miR-28-5p in liver CSC expansion and sorafenib response, rendering miR-28-5p an optimal therapeutic target for HCC.

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