Abstract
Although the sphere culture system has been widely used in stem cell biology, its application for drug screening is limited due to lack of standardized, rapid analytical tools. To optimize sphere cultures for in vitro screening of drugs, we evaluated the properties of primary tumor cells growing as tumorspheres and compared their chemosensitivity to those of cells growing in monolayer. Most cells in tumorsphere cultures were quiescent whereas cells in monolayer culture had a high mitotic index. Moreover, doxorubicin showed better cytotoxicity than paclitaxel in the sphere cultures, but their efficacy was reversed in the monolayer cultures. Importantly, the response of cytotoxic outcomes for suspension cultures matched the in vivo response better than monolayer cultures, providing support for the use of short term suspension cultures of primary cells as a model for drug testing.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Al-Hajj M, Wicha MS, Benito-Hernandez A, Morrison SJ, Clarke MF (2003) Prospective identification of tumorigenic breast cancer cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:3983–3988
Badders NM, Goel S, Clark RJ, Klos KS, Kim S, Bafico A, Lindvall C, Williams BO, Alexander CM (2009) The Wnt receptor, Lrp5, is expressed by mouse mammary stem cells and is required to maintain the basal lineage. PLoS ONE 4:e6594
Blagosklonny MV, Fojo T (1999) Molecular effects of paclitaxel: myths and reality (a critical review). Int J Cancer 83:151–156
Dent R, Trudeau M, Pritchard KI, Hanna WM, Kahn HK, Sawka CA, Lickley LA, Rawlinson E, Sun P, Narod SA (2007) Triple-negative breast cancer: clinical features and patterns of recurrence. Clin Cancer Res 13:4429–4434
Dontu G, Abdallah WM, Foley JM, Jackson KW, Clarke MF, Kawamura MJ, Wicha MS (2003) In vitro propagation and transcriptional profiling of human mammary stem/progenitor cells. Genes Dev 17:1253–1270
Farnie G, Clarke RB, Spence K, Pinnock N, Brennan K, Anderson NG, Bundred NJ (2007) Novel cell culture technique for primary ductal carcinoma in situ: role of Notch and epidermal growth factor receptor signaling pathways. J Natl Cancer Inst 99:616–627
Gamucci T, D’Ottavio AM, Magnolfi E, Barduagni M, Vaccaro A, Sperduti I, Moscetti L, Belli F, Meliffi L (2007) Weekly epirubicin plus docetaxel as first-line treatment in metastatic breast cancer. Br J Cancer 97:1040–1045
Greaves M, Maley CC (2012) Clonal evolution in cancer. Nature 481:306–313
Grimshaw MJ, Cooper L, Papazisis K, Coleman JA, Bohnenkamp HR, Chiapero-Stanke L, Taylor-Papadimitriou J, Burchell JM (2008) Mammosphere culture of metastatic breast cancer cells enriches for tumorigenic breast cancer cells. Breast Cancer Res 10(3):R52. doi:10.1186/bcr2106
Gupta PB, Onder TT, Jiang G, Tao K, Kuperwasser C, Weinberg RA, Lander ES (2009) Identification of selective inhibitors of cancer stem cells by high-throughput screening. Cell 138:645–659. doi:10.1186/bcr2106
Haffty BG, Yang Q, Reiss M, Kearney T, Higgins SA, Weidhaas J, Harris L, Hait W, Toppmeyer D (2006) Locoregional relapse and distant metastasis in conservatively managed triple negative early-stage breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 24:5652–5657
Kim S, Roopra A, Alexander CM (2012) A phenotypic mouse model of basaloid breast tumors. PLoS ONE 7:e30979
Liu JC, Deng T, Lehal RS, Kim J, Zacksenhaus E (2007) Identification of tumorsphere- and tumor-initiating cells in HER2/Neu-induced mammary tumors. Cancer Res 67:8671–8681
Montales MT, Rahal OM, Kang J, Rogers TJ, Prior RL, Wu X, Simmen RC (2012) Repression of mammosphere formation of human breast cancer cells by soy isoflavone genistein and blueberry polyphenolic acids suggests diet-mediated targeting of cancer stem-like/progenitor cells. Carcinogenesis 33:652–660
Pastrana E, Silva-Vargas V, Doetsch F (2011) Eyes wide open: a critical review of sphere-formation as an assay for stem cells. Cell Stem Cell 8:486–498
Ponti D, Costa A, Zaffaroni N, Pratesi G, Petrangolini G, Coradini D, Pilotti S, Pierotti MA, Daidone MG (2005) Isolation and in vitro propagation of tumorigenic breast cancer cells with stem/progenitor cell properties. Cancer Res 65:5506–5511
Reynolds BA, Weiss S (1992) Generation of neurons and astrocytes from isolated cells of the adult mammalian central nervous system. Science 255:1707–1710
Rouzier R, Rajan R, Wagner P, Hess KR, Gold DL, Stec J, Ayers M, Ross JS, Zhang P, Buchholz TA, Kuerer H, Green M, Arun B, Hortobagyi GN, Symmans WF, Pusztai L (2005) Microtubule-associated protein tau: a marker of paclitaxel sensitivity in breast cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:8315–8320
Schwartz MA (1997) Integrins, oncogenes, and anchorage independence. J Cell Biol 139:575–578
Shaw FL, Harrison H, Spence K, Ablett MP, Simoes BM, Farnie G, Clarke RB (2012) A detailed mammosphere assay protocol for the quantification of breast stem cell activity. J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia 17:111–117
Sledge GW, Neuberg D, Bernardo P, Ingle JN, Martino S, Rowinsky EK, Wood WC (2003) Phase III trial of doxorubicin, paclitaxel, and the combination of doxorubicin and paclitaxel as front-line chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer: an intergroup trial (E1193). J Clin Oncol 21:588–592
Tirino V, Desiderio V, Paino F, De Rosa A, Papaccio F, La Noce M, Laino L, De Francesco F, Papaccio G (2013) Cancer stem cells in solid tumors: an overview and new approaches for their isolation and characterization. FASEB J 27:13–24
Uchida Y, Tanaka S, Aihara A, Adikrisna R, Yoshitake K, Matsumura S, Mitsunori Y, Murakata A, Noguchi N, Irie T, Kudo A, Nakamura N, Lai PB, Arii S (2010) Analogy between sphere forming ability and stemness of human hepatoma cells. Oncol Rep 24:1147–1151
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by an award to the NCDDG (U19; CA113297), and an Era of Hope Scholars Award to CMA (W81XWH-06-1-0491).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, S., Alexander, C.M. Tumorsphere assay provides more accurate prediction of in vivo responses to chemotherapeutics. Biotechnol Lett 36, 481–488 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-013-1393-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-013-1393-1