Collecting ovarian cancer stem cells from ovarian cancer cells

摘要

The present invention relates to compositions and methods for treating, characterizing and diagnosing ovarian cancer. In particular, the present invention provides methods for treating and/or preventing ovarian cancer in a subject by administering to the subject an effective amount of Mullerian Inhibiting substance and/or an effective amount of an agent that inhibits BCRP1. The present invention further provides methods to identify and/or enrich for populations of ovarian cancer stem cells and populations of somatic ovarian stem cells, in particular, enrichment for populations of coelomic somatic ovarian stem cells, subcoelomic/stromal somatic ovarian stem cells and periphilar medullary somatic ovarian stem cells. The present invention also provides somatic ovarian stem cell markers and ovarian cancer stem cell markers, as well as methods to identify agents which selectively inhibit the proliferation of ovarian cancer stem cells as compared to somatic ovarian stem cells.

主权项

1. A method for collecting a population of ovarian cancer stem cells, the method comprising
(i) contacting a biopsy tissue sample comprising a population of ovarian cancer cells with an anti-EpCam, an anti-cytokeratin-8 and an anti-β-catenin antibody, antibody derivative or fragment thereof; (ii) separating the ovarian cancer cells that are positive for binding the combination of anti-EpCam, anti-cytokeratin-8, and anti-β-catenin antibodies, from the ovarian cancer cells that do not bind all three of the antibodies; (iii) collecting the ovarian cancer cells that are positive for the binding of the combination of anti-EpCam, anti-cytokeratin-8, and anti-β-catenin antibodies, wherein the isolated ovarian cancer cells comprises ovarian cancer stem cells.