Abstract

Breast cancer stem cells were considered as origins of breast cancer. Previously published studies showed that breast cancer stem cells exhibited high multi-drug resistance. This study aimed to evaluate the spontaneous differentiation of human breast cancer stem cells and investigate some in vitro conditions to control this process. Human breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) were sorted from primary culture of breast malignant tumors based on expression of CD44 and CD24. The in vitro spontaneous differentiation of BCSCs was evaluated in the popular culture medium DMEM/F12 supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), 1% antibiotic-antimycotic. There were some different methods to control the spontaneous differentiation of BCSCs included free serum culture, mammosphere culture, basic fibroblast growth factor and epidermal growth factor supplement to serum medium, and hypoxia culture. The results showed that BCSCs always were spontaneously differentiated in vitro in the popular culture medium DMEM/F12 plus 10% FBS. The percentage of BCSCs gradually decreased according to sub-culture times and became stable after 20 sub-culture times. All investigated methods could not completely inhibit the spontaneous differentiation of BCSCs. Serum-free culture combined with hypoxia condition had strongest inhibition of this process. These results demonstrated that the spontaneous differentiation is nature process of BCSCs; therefore this process should be determined and suitably controlled depending on different experiments.

Key words: Breast cancer; Cancer stem cells; Spontaneous differentiation; Hypoxia culture; Serum free culture; Mammosphere culture