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 f...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play a vital role in the formation of tumors and have been studied as a target of anticancer therapy. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are important in the genesis and progression of cancer. Various lncRNAs, such as ROR, HOTAIR, H19, UCA1, and ARSR, are involved in cancer stemness. These lncRNAs could regulate the expression of CSC-related transcriptional factors, such as...

The identification of a fraction of cancer stem cells (CSCs) associated with resistance to chemotherapy in most solid tumors leads to the dogma that eliminating this fraction will cure cancer. Experimental data has challenged this simplistic and optimistic model. Opposite to the classical cancer stem cell model, we introduced the stemness phenotype model (SPM), which proposed that all glioma ce...

Reprogramming committed differentiated cells into stable stem cells has been achieved in various settings in vitro. A new study by Tata et al. (2013) demonstrates that, when airway basal stem cells are in demand, spontaneous reprogramming occurs in vivo as committed secretory cells convert into stem cells to replenish the stem cell pool. The authors use lineage-tracing strategies to show that, ...

CD133 has been implicated as a cancer stem cell (CSC) surface marker in several malignancies including pancreatic cancer. However, the functional role of this surface glycoprotein in the cancer stem cell remains elusive. In this study, we determined that CD133 overexpression induced "stemness" properties in MIA-PaCa2 cells along with increased tumorigenicity, tumor progression, and metastasis i...