%0 Journal Article
%T Compound Kushen Injection suppresses human breast cancer stem-like cells by down-regulating the canonical Wnt/¦Â-catenin pathway
%A Weiru Xu
%A Hongsheng Lin
%A Ying Zhang
%A Xinyi Chen
%A Baojin Hua
%A Wei Hou
%A Xin Qi
%A Yingxia Pei
%A Xiaoyun Zhu
%A Zhizheng Zhao
%A Liangliang Yang
%J Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-9966-30-103
%X The analysis of CKI on SP population and the main genes of Wnt signaling pathway were studied first. Then we studied the tumorigenicity of SP cells and the effects of CKI on SP cells in vivo. The mice inoculated with 10,000 SP cells were randomly divided into three groups (6 in each group) and treated with CKI, cisplatin and saline (as a control) respectively for 7 weeks. The tumor formation rates of each group were compared. The main genes and proteins of the Wnt signaling pathway were analyzed by RT-PCR and western blot.CKI suppressed the size of SP population (approximately 90%), and down-regulated the main genes of Wnt signaling pathway. We also determined that MCF-7 SP cells were more tumorigenic than non-SP and unsorted cells. The Wnt signaling pathway was up-regulated in tumors derived from SP cells compared with that in tumors from non-SP cells. The tumor formation rate of the CKI Group was 33% (2/6, P < 0.05), and that of Cisplatin Group was 50%(3/6, P < 0.05), whereas that of the Control Group was 100% (6/6).The RT-PCR and western blot results indicated that CKI suppressed tumor growth by down-regulating the Wnt/¦Â-catenin pathway, while cisplatin activated the Wnt/¦Â-catenin pathway and might spare SP cells.It suggested that CKI may serve as a novel drug targeting cancer stem-like cells, though further studies are recommended.Accumulating evidence has indicted that cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the roots of oncogenesis, cancer relapse and metastasis as they are resistant to all conventional therapies, even the advanced targeted therapy [1-6]. To date, CSCs have been identified in leukemia [7], breast cancer [8], brain cancer [9], prostate cancer [10], gastrointestinal cancer [11], and other cancers with various techniques. One of them, the side population cell sorting analysis, is now capable of isolating cells which contain CSCs [12-17]. CSCs have the ability to exclude the DNA binding dye, Hoechst33342 through an adenosine triphosphate-binding cassette (AB
%K cancer stem-like cells
%K side population
%K Compound Kushen Injection
%K MCF-7
%K Wnt/¦Â-catenin signaling
%K cisplatin
%U http://www.jeccr.com/content/30/1/103