Maspin Expression in Prostate Tumor Cells Averts Stemness and Stratifies Drug Sensitivity.

ABSTRACT: Future curative cancer chemotherapies have to overcome tumor cell heterogeneity and plasticity. To test the hypothesis that the tumor suppressor maspin may reduce microenvironment-dependent prostate tumor cell plasticity and thereby modulate drug sensitivity, we established a new schematic combination of two-dimensional (2D), three-dimensional (3D), and suspension cultures to enrich prostate cancer cell subpopulations with distinct differentiation potentials. We report here that depending on the level of maspin expression, tumor cells in suspension and 3D collagen I manifest the phenotypes of stem-like and dormant tumor cell populations, respectively. In suspension, the surviving maspin-expressing tumor cells lost the self-renewal capacity, underwent senescence, lost the ability to dediffe

SUBMITTER: Bernardo MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4573892 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature