Effect of CD44 Binding Peptide Conjugated to an Engineered Inert Matrix on Maintenance of Breast Cancer Stem Cells and Tumorsphere Formation

Author(s)

Xiaoming Yang, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow
Samaneh Kamali Sarvestani, University of South CarolinaFollow
Seyedsina Moeinzadeh, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow
Xuezhong He
Esmaiel Jabbari, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow

Document Type

Article

Abstract

As cancer cells are affected by many factors in their microenvironment, a major challenge is to isolate the effect of a specific factor on cancer stem cells (CSCs) while keeping other factors unchanged. We have developed a synthetic inert 3D polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) gel culture system as a unique tool to study the effect of microenvironmental factors on CSCs response. We have reported that CSCs formed in the inert PEGDA gel by encapsulation of breast cancer cells maintain their stemness within a certain range of gel stiffness. The objective was to investigate the effect of CD44 binding peptide (CD44BP) conjugated to the gel on the maintenance of breast CSCs.

Publication Info

Published in PLOS ONE, Volume 8, Issue 3, 2013, pages 1-15.

Rights

© PLOS ONE 2013, PLOS.