The bone marrow microenvironment plays a key role in the stimulation of growth and survival of multiple myeloma (MM) cells. We investigated whether membrane microfragments (MFBs) exert a stimulatory effect on mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) gene expression or differentiation. MSCs from patients with multiple myeloma (MMBM-MSCs) proliferated at a slower rate than MSCs from healthy volunteers (BM-MSC...

Folate and its synthetic form, folic acid (FA), are essential vitamins for the regeneration of S-adenosyl methionine molecules, thereby maintaining adequate cellular methylation. The deregulation of DNA methylation is a contributing factor to carcinogenesis, as alterations in genetic methylation may contribute to stem cell reprogramming and dedifferentiation processes that lead to a cancer stem...

Tumor initiating or cancer stem cells (CSCs) are suggested to be responsible for tumor initiation and growth. Moreover, therapy resistance and minimal residual disease are thought to result from selective resistance of CSCs. Isolation of CSCs from colon carcinomas can be accomplished by selection of a subpopulation of tumor cells based on expression of one or multiple cell surface markers assoc...

Androgen depletion is a key strategy for treating human prostate cancer, but the presence of hormone-independent cells escaping treatment remains a major therapeutic challenge. Here, we identify a minor subset of stem-like human prostate tumour-initiating cells (TICs) that do not express prostate cancer markers, such as androgen receptor or prostate specific antigen. These TICs possess stem cel...

Colorectal cancer stem cells (CSCs) are responsible for the initiation, progression and metastasis of human colorectal cancers, and have been characterized by the expression of cell surface markers, such as CD44, CD133, CD166 and LGR5. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are differentially expressed between CSCs and non-tumorigenic cancer cells, and play important roles in the maintenance and regulation of stem...