Gene expression profiling of tumor-initiating stem cells from mouse Krebs-2 carcinoma using a novel marker of poorly differentiated cells

Using the ability of poorly differentiated cells to natively internalize fragments of extracellular double-stranded DNA as a marker, we isolated a tumorigenic subpopulation present in Krebs-2 ascites that demonstrated the features of tumor-inducing cancer stem cells. Having combined TAMRA-labeled DNA probe and the power of RNA-seq technology, we identified a set of 168 genes specifically expressed in TAMRA-positive cells (tumor-initiating stem cells), these genes remaining silent in TAMRA-negative cancer cells.