NK cell upraise in the dark world of cancer stem cells

Table 1 Characterization of cancer stem cells

	Method		Procedure
Isolation and identification of CSCs	Side population detection		Sorting based on Hoechst dye efflux
	Cell surface markers detection		Sorting based on cell surface marker expression
	Culture of non-adherent		Sphere culture
Properties and characterization of CSCs	Tumorgenicity assay		Implantation of a single CSC for generating the entire tumor in a mouse model
	Self-renewal	Serial transplantation (single cell)	The low numbers of CSCs isolated from any generation of tumor should be able to give rise to a subsequent tumor in vivo
	Self-renewal	In vitro renewal	Measuring the ability to form colonies through multiple generations in vitro
	Establishment of tumor heterogeneity		Determination of CSC-derived tumor heterogeneity by flowcytometry (surface markers) or immunohistochemistry

^aThe surface markers used based on tumor differentiation to identify CSCs are depicted in Table 2

ISSN: 1475-2867