title: Colon cancer stem cells.
abstract: This unit describes protocols for working with colon cancer stem cells. To work with these cells one must start by generating single-cell suspensions from human colon cancer tissue. These cell suspensions are sorted using flow cytometry-assisted cell sorting to fractionate the cells into tumor-initiating and nontumor-initiating subsets. Once the cells have been fractionated, they must be functionally tested to determine tumor-forming capacity, the gold standard being the in vivo xenograft assay. Methods have also been developed to grow these cells in vitro in a sphere-forming assay. This unit will describe how to isolate and functionally test colon cancer stem cells, as well as provide advice on the potential challenges of the research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Antonija
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kreso
authors.forename: Catherine Adell
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: O'Brien
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods*; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D018874:Spheroids, Cellular / Q000166:cytology*