BACKGROUND Accumulating evidence supports the hypothesis that cancer stem cells (CSCs) are essential for cancer initiation, metastasis and drug resistance. However, the functional association of gastric CSC markers with stemness and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) signature genes is unclear. METHODS qPCR was performed to measure the expression profiles of stemness and EMT signature ge...

objective: endothelial progenitor cells (epcs) have a potential application for cell therapy, however, their biological nature is not well-understood. epcs also possess some stemness features, such as their clonogenicity and differentiation capacity. the main aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of certain transcription factors regulating self-renewal property of stem cells. materia...

Stem cells have the ability to self-renew and differentiate into various cell types. Both cell-intrinsic and extrinsic factors may contribute to aging-related decline in stem cell function and loss of stemness. The maintenance of cellular homeostasis requires timely removal of toxic proteins and damaged organelles that accumulate with age or in pathological conditions. Autophagy is one of the m...

BACKGROUND B cell-specific Moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1 (Bmi-1) plays an important role in regulating stemness in some kinds of cancer. However, the mechanisms remain unclear. This study was to investigate whether and how Bmi-1 regulates stemness of gastric cancer. METHODS We firstly explored the role of Bmi-1 in regulating stem cell-like features in gastric cancer. Second...

The dynamic nature of cancer stem cells that underlie metastasis or their ability to switch between different cellular identities, as in EMT and MET, has profound implications for cancer therapy. The functional relationship between molecules involved in cancer cell stemness and metastasis is not clear. In this regard, our studies on hGBM tissue grade IV specimens showed significant expression o...

AIM To establish a model to enrich and characterize stem-like cells from murine normal liver and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines and to further investigate stem-like cell association with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). METHODS In this study, we utilized a stem cell conditioned serum-free medium to enrich stem-like cells from mouse HCC and normal liver cell lines, Hepa 1...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) and EMT-type cells, which share molecular characteristics with CSCs, have been believed to play critical roles in tumor metastasis. Although much progress has been garnered in elucidating the molecular pathways that trigger EMT, stemness and metastasis, a number of key mechanistic gaps remain elusive. In the study, miR-371-5p was obviously down-regulated in primary CRC ...

Vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) has been implicated in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) processes and various human cancers, including skin cancer. Skin cancer is an aggressive human malignancy with increasing incidence worldwide; however, the underlying mechanisms involved in VEGF-C-induced skin cancer stemness and metastasis remain unclear. Here, we report that VEGF-C enh...

This study aimed to evaluate the capacity of hypocalcemic analogues of 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D₂ (1,25D2) and 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D₃ (1,25D3) to inhibit regrowth and regulate the stemness-related gene expression in colon cancer cells undergoing renewal after exposure to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). All of the tested analogues of 1,25D2 equally potently decreased the clonogenicity and the prolifera...

The cancer stem cell theory hypothesizes that cancer stem cells (CSCs), which possess self-renewal and other stem cell properties, are regarded as the cause of tumor formation, recurrence and metastasis. The isolation and identification of CSCs could help to develop novel therapeutic strategies specifically targeting CSCs. In this study, we enrich...