Survival and self-renewing capacity of breast cancer initiating cells during fractionated radiation treatment.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Recent data indicate a hierarchical organization of many solid cancers, including breast cancer, with a small number of cancer initiating cells (CICs) that have the ability to self-renew and exhibit multi-lineage potency. We, and others, have demonstrated that CICs in breast cancer and glioma are relatively resistant to ionizing radiation if compared to their non-tumorigenic counterparts. However, the extent of the remaining self-renewing capacity of CICs after fractions of radiation is currently unknown. We hypothesized that CICs, in contrast to their non-tumorigenic counterparts, not only survive fractions of ionizing radiation but also retain the CIC phenotype as defined by operational means.

Methods

We used two marker systems to identify breast CICs (CD24-/l

SUBMITTER: Lagadec C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2880434 | biostudies-literature | 2010

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature