The squamous cell carcinoma cell line OM-1 retains both p75-dependent stratified epithelial progenitor potential and cancer stem cell properties

The low-affinity nerve growth factor receptor p75 is a stratified epithelial stem/progenitor marker of human epithelia. We found OM-1, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) line, showed distinct cells with cluster, especially located at the center growing colony in monolayer culture. A cluster was surrounded by cytokeratin 14- and 13-expressing that settled outer margin colony. OM-1 were also capable forming tumor spheres suspension culture, an ability which attenuated inhibition p75-signaling. Intriguingly, we p75-negative population from culture re-committed to become p75-clustering cells. These results indicated possibility SCC multi-layering capacity can exploit p75-dependent progenitor property for cancer stemness. • Squamous line maintained cell. Single cell-derived colonies centre hierarchical linages. have stemness properties.