miRNA expression in ovarian cancer stem cells

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are considered to play a central role in the cancer progression, metastasis and the development of drug resistance. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have important roles in regulating CSC properties and are considered to be potential therapeutic targets. Diverse aberrantly expressed miRNAs have been reported in ovarian cancer cells. However, there have been few reports about miRNAs that were associated with stemness and progression of ovarian cancer. In this study, we enriched ovarian CSCs by using sphere culture of two ovarian cancer cell lines Kuramochi and SKOV3, and screened crucial miRNAs associated with characteristics and maintenance of CSCs by using miRNA nanoString nCounter assay. miRNA expression was determined in both adherent and sphere cultured ovarian cancer cell lines Kuramochi and SKOV3.