Chemoresistance in pancreatic cancer has been attributed to tumor-initiating cells (TICs), a minor sub-population of tumor cells. However, the mechanism of chemo-resistance in these cells is still unclear.In the current study, immunohistochemical analysis of LSL-KrasG12D; LSL-Trp53R172H;PdxCre (KPC) murine tumors indicated that hypoxic regions developed through tumor progression. This hypoxic "...

Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (AT/RT) is an extremely malignant neoplasm in the central nervous system (CNS) which occurs in infancy and childhood. Recent studies suggested that CD133 could be considered a marker for brain cancer stem-like cells (CSCs). However, the role of CD133 in AT/RT has never been investigated. Herein we report the isolation of CD133-positive cells (CD133(+)), found to...

BACKGROUND CD133 is a cell surface marker of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF), sustains proliferation and not differentiation of embryonic stem cells. We used CD133 to purify adult human retinal cells and aimed to determine what effect LIF had on these cultures and whether they still had the ability to generate neurospheres. METHODS Retinal cell susp...

BACKGROUND Co-expression of CD133, cell surface glycoprotein, and nestin, an intermediate filament protein, was determined to be a marker of neural stem cells and of cancer stem cells in neurogenic tumors. METHODS We examined the expression of CD133 and nestin in ten tumor tissue samples taken from patients with rhabdomyosarcomas and in five rhabdomyosarcoma cell lines. Immunohistochemistry a...

Stem cells may play a role in the development and maintenance of proliferative diseases of the prostate such as prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia. Cell membrane protein markers, CD49f, CD133 and CD44, have been shown to identify putative prostate stem cells, but a lack of consensus exists with regards to the most efficient marker(s) for stem-like cell identification. This study a...

Stem cells are thought to be the cell of origin in malignant transformation in many tissues, but their role in human prostate carcinogenesis continues to be debated. One of the conflicts with this model is that cancer stem cells have been described to lack androgen receptor (AR) expression, which is of established importance in prostate cancer initiation and progression. We re-examined the expr...

CD133 is a pentaspan transmembrane protein that can serve as a biomarker for cancer stem cells, although its biochemical mechanism remains unclear. Here we report that CD133 expression enhances glioma cell tolerance of a nutrient-deprived microenvironment. Under starvation conditions, CD133-positive cells exhibited higher survival and decreased levels of apoptosis. These changes were dependent ...

BACKGROUND Melanoma is a heterogeneous tumor in which phenotype-switching and CD133 marker have been associated with metastasis promotion and chemotherapy resistance. CD133 positive (CD133+) subpopulation has also been suggested as putative cancer stem cell (CSC) of melanoma tumor. Human endogenous retrovirus type K (HERV-K) has been described to be aberrantly activated during melanoma progress...

The dermal papilla comprises the specialised mesenchymal cells at the base of the hair follicle. Communication between dermal papilla cells and the overlying epithelium is essential for differentiation of the hair follicle lineages. We report that Sox2 is expressed in all dermal papillae at E16.5, but from E18.5 onwards expression is confined to a subset of dermal papillae. In postnatal skin, S...

CD133 is a membrane molecule that has been, controversially, reported as a CSC marker in colorectal cancer (CRC). In this study, we sought to clarify the expression and role of CD133 in CRC. Initially the size of the CD133-expressing (CD133+) population in eight well-described CRC cell lines was measured by flow cytometry and was found to range from 0% to >95%. The cell line HT29 has a CD133+ p...