Cancer Stem Cells?? - (Jul/27/2010 )
Hello,
I'm a high school student, and I'm extremely interested in doing a cellular biology project for science fair this year. Last year I did one using MCF-7 cells and kombucha tea. This year I want to do something much more advanced. I've been looking into stuff with Cancer Stem Cells, but I'm confused. Can you work with these cells in most labs? or is extensive equipment needed? What exactly is involved in Cancer Stem Cells?
I had been reading some abstracts involved with it, and it sounded realitively normal, but I'm wondering if I may have misunderstood.
If this is something that is completely out of my league, does anyone have any recommendations as to what I could do? Please keep in mind that I'm trying to push myself as much as possible, not looking for something simple. I participated in INTEL ISEF last year, and I found that students were able to pull off things adults thought impossible.
Thanks,
ChaChi
Cancer stem cells are the "precursors" of cancers in a fashion, sort of the seeding population that actively divides and can migrate. They are dificult to obtain and maintain, though not as much as embryonic stem cells. The techniques used for handling are pretty similar to ordinary culture practices, though there are things like feeder cells and the need to extensively characterise to ensure that they have not lost the stem cell phenotype.
To get them you need a fresh cancer mass (getting hold of fresh tissue is always an issue) of some sort, and processes for getting the stem cells out. You would need some experience in doing this and growing the cells in the appropriate medium, which I guess means that you would need to be in a lab for most of the proceedures. There are several lines out there that will be more or less stable as cancer stem cells, which it may be possible to work with. Most stem cells have a finite life span.
Something that is probably more achievable is to grow primary fibroblasts either as embryonic fibroblasts or skin fibroblasts, and then do some experiments on them. You may also be able to do something with induced pleuripotent stem (iPS) cells, as these are relatively easy to make and maintain.
Thank you, that response was extremely helpful. The professor with whom I usually work is on vacation and I'm doing my own research. I'll look more into what you told me.
Does anyone have any examples of experiments done with these cells? I'm not looking to copy anything, I just want to get ideas. I was so lucky to stumble upon this site while doing research. This forum has been more helpful than many of the sources I've been looking at.
Bob1, you mention iPSCs. What experience, if any, do you have with these? I'm currently on a project looking at culturing Mouse Bone Marrow Cells and to expand the population of hematopoietic stem cells to then be able to treat them with IL-5 to generate an eosinophilic-like population of cells. I've had quite a lot of issues with getting the culture to work well, so maybe looking at/using iPSCs could be an option. What do you think?
bob1 on Wed Jul 28 00:25:57 2010 said:
Cancer stem cells are the "precursors" of cancers in a fashion, sort of the seeding population that actively divides and can migrate. They are dificult to obtain and maintain, though not as much as embryonic stem cells. The techniques used for handling are pretty similar to ordinary culture practices, though there are things like feeder cells and the need to extensively characterise to ensure that they have not lost the stem cell phenotype.
To get them you need a fresh cancer mass (getting hold of fresh tissue is always an issue) of some sort, and processes for getting the stem cells out. You would need some experience in doing this and growing the cells in the appropriate medium, which I guess means that you would need to be in a lab for most of the proceedures. There are several lines out there that will be more or less stable as cancer stem cells, which it may be possible to work with. Most stem cells have a finite life span.
Something that is probably more achievable is to grow primary fibroblasts either as embryonic fibroblasts or skin fibroblasts, and then do some experiments on them. You may also be able to do something with induced pleuripotent stem (iPS) cells, as these are relatively easy to make and maintain.
I have never came across a feeder cell co-culture of cancer stem cells... Most people (at least in melanoma research) try to immediately inject them into mouse. And then it depends on the mouse, how "good" your CSC are. See for example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597380/ (Quintana 2008), hotly debated. I think most people agree that cell lines do not contain CSC. So you'd need access to fresh tumour samples, a FACS sorter and a severely immunocompromised mouse. I guess that'll be difficult.
Cheers,
Minna
Piersgb on Wed Jul 28 12:07:22 2010 said:
Bob1, you mention iPSCs. What experience, if any, do you have with these? I'm currently on a project looking at culturing Mouse Bone Marrow Cells and to expand the population of hematopoietic stem cells to then be able to treat them with IL-5 to generate an eosinophilic-like population of cells. I've had quite a lot of issues with getting the culture to work well, so maybe looking at/using iPSCs could be an option. What do you think?
I am not convinced that generating iPS from HSC and then differentiating them back to HSC makes much sense. Generating iPS is not "easy", you'll need at least 1 year to get it up and running. I think you should focus on HSC and discuss your problems with some specialists. iPS are extremely artificial, and you'll never know if success or failure of your culture system has anything to do with the exogeneous genes or chromatin landscape etc.
Sorry if I'm a bit negative.
Cheers,
Minna