Project description:Corneal epithelial stem cells reside in the limbus that is the transitional zone between the cornea and conjunctiva, and are essential to maintain the homeostasis of corneal epithelium. However, their characterization is poorly understood. Therefore, we constructed gene expression profiles of limbal epithelial SP and non-SP cell using RNA-sequencing. As a result, limbal epithelial SP cells have immature cell phenotypes with endothelial/mesenchymal cell markers, while limbal epithelial non-SP cells have epithelial progenitor cell markers.
Project description:Targeted therapies against cancer stem cells which are enriched in side populations (SP) involves interruption of Wnt-signalling. Furthermore, EpCAM is a SP marker and modulator of Wnt-signalling. Therefore, the effects of an anti-EpCAM treatment on SP-cells and WNT/β-catenin signalling was studied. SP of the human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549 was obtained by fluorescence activated cell sorting and whole genome scans helped to define their molecular phenotype after anti-EpCAM antibody treatment.
