학술논문

Isolation of live label-retaining cells and cells undergoing asymmetric cell division via nonrandom chromosomal cosegregation from human cancers
Document Type
Report
Source
Stem Cells and Development. October 1, 2011, Vol. 20 Issue 10, p1649, 10 p.
Subject
United States
Language
English
ISSN
1547-3287
Abstract
Introduction Adult stem cells are defined, at least, by their ability to differentiate into multiple progeny and maintain self-renewal activity [1,2]. Adult stem cells have been identified in a variety [...]
The ability to retain DNA labels over time is a property proposed to be associated with adult stem cells. Recently, label retaining cells (LRC) were indentified in cancer. LRC were suggested to be the result of either slow-cycling or asymmetric-cell-division with nonrandom-chromosomal-cosegregation (ACD-NRCC). ACD-NRCC is proposed to segregate the older template DNA strands into daughter stem cells and newly synthesized DNA into daughter cells destined for differentiation. The existence of cells undergoing ACD-NRCC and the stem-like nature of LRC remain controversial. Currently, to detect LRC and ACD-NRCC, cells need to undergo fixation. Therefore, testing the stem-cell nature and other functional traits of LRC and cells undergoing ACD-NRCC has been limited. Here, we show a method for labeling DNA with single and dual-color nucleotides in live human liver cancer cells avoiding the need for fixation. We describe a novel methodology for both the isolation of live LRC and cells undergoing ACD-NRCC via fluorescence-activated cell sorting with confocal microscopy validation. This has the potential to be a powerful adjunct to stem-cell and cancer research.