Establishment of Highly Tumorigenic Human Colorectal Cancer Cell Line (CR4) with Properties of Putative Cancer Stem Cells

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has the third highest incidence and mortality rates among the US population. According to the most recent concept of carcinogenesis, human tumors are organized hierarchically, and the top of this hierarchy is occupied by malignant stem cells, or cancer stem cells (CSCs), which possess unlimited self-renewal and tumor-initiating capacities and high resistance to conventional anticancer therapies. To reflect the complexity and diversity of human tumors and to provide clinically and physiologically relevant in vivo and in vitro models, a large banks of well characterized patient-derived low-passage cell lines, and especially CSC-enriched cell lines are urgently needed. Overall design: Using RNA-Seq, we have performed a functional genomic analysis in tumor-initiating fractions of CR4 (small) cells grown adherent to type I collagen versus grown as 3D spheroids, in comparison to the bulk tumor cells (long and dychotomized cells) grown under standard culture conditions.