Stemness and chemoresistance in epithelial ovarian carcinoma cells under shear stress.

ABSTRACT: One of greatest challenges to the successful treatment of cancer is drug resistance. An exciting approach is the eradication of cancer stem cells (CSCs). However, little is known about key signals regulating the formation and expansion of CSCs. Moreover, lack of a reliable predictive preclinical model has been a major obstacle to discover new cancer drugs and predict their clinical activity. Here, in ovarian cancer, a highly chemoresistant tumor that is rapidly fatal, we provide the first evidence demonstrating the causal involvement of mechanical stimulus in the CSC phenotype using a customizable microfluidic platform and three-dimensional spheroids, which most closely mimic tumor behavior. We found that ovarian cancer cells significantly acquired the expression of epithelial-to-mesenchym

SUBMITTER: Ip CK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4887794 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature