Drug-eluting microarrays to identify effective chemotherapeutic combinations targeting patient-derived cancer stem cells.

ABSTRACT: A new paradigm in oncology establishes a spectrum of tumorigenic potential across the heterogeneous phenotypes within a tumor. The cancer stem cell hypothesis postulates that a minute fraction of cells within a tumor, termed cancer stem cells (CSCs), have a tumor-initiating capacity that propels tumor growth. An application of this discovery is to target this critical cell population using chemotherapy; however, the process of isolating these cells is arduous, and the rarity of CSCs makes it difficult to test potential drug candidates in a robust fashion, particularly for individual patients. To address the challenge of screening drug libraries on patient-derived populations of rare cells, such as CSCs, we have developed a drug-eluting microarray, a miniaturized platform onto which a minim

SUBMITTER: Carstens MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4507198 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature