Expression data from Disulfiram or 5-FU treated EpCAM-negative non-tumor-initiating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor-initiating cells (TICs) organize a cellular hierarchy in a similar fashion to normal stem cell systems and exhibit high tumorigenic activity in xenograft transplantation assay. Disulfiram (DSF) could preferentially eradicate TICs, but the molecular machinery of its effect against TICs still remains largely unknown. We found that DSF but not 5-FU erradicates tumor-initiating HCC cells. To compare the gene expression profiles in EpCAM-positive cells and EpCAM-negative cells, we conducted microarray analyses of EpCAM-negative HCC cells treated with DSF or 5-FU. Purified EpCAM-negative HCC cells treated with Disulfiram or 5-FU were subjected to RNA extraction and hybridization on Agilent microarrays.