Identification of selective inhibitors of cancer stem cells by high-throughput screening.

Cell
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Screens for agents that specifically kill epithelial cancer stem cells (CSCs) have not been possible due to the rarity of these cells within tumor cell populations and their relative instability in culture. We describe here an approach to screening for agents with epithelial CSC-specific toxicity. We implemented this method in a chemical screen and discovered compounds showing selective toxicity for breast CSCs. One compound, salinomycin, reduces the proportion of CSCs by >100-fold relative to paclitaxel, a commonly used breast cancer chemotherapeutic drug. Treatment of mice with salinomycin inhibits mammary tumor growth in vivo and induces increased epithelial differentiation of tumor cells. In addition, global gene expression analyses show that salinomycin treatment results in the loss of expression of breast CSC genes previously identified by analyses of breast tissues isolated directly from patients. This study demonstrates the ability to identify agents with specific toxicity for epithelial CSCs.

Year of Publication
2009
Journal
Cell
Volume
138
Issue
4
Pages
645-59
Date Published
2009 Aug 21
ISSN
1097-4172
URL
DOI
10.1016/j.cell.2009.06.034
PubMed ID
19682730
PubMed Central ID
PMC4892125
Links
Grant list
R03 MH089663 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States