Scientists have discovered that salinomycin can kill the breast cancer cells without harming other cells in the body. One compound, salinomycin, reduces the proportion of CSCs by >100-fold relative to paclitaxel, a commonly used breast cancer chemotherapeutic drug.
Treatment of mice with salinomycin inhibits mammary tumor growth invivo and induces increased epithelial differentiation of tumor cells.
Screens for agents that specifically kill epithelial cancer stem cells (CSCs) have not been possible due to the rarity of these cells within tumor cell populations and their relative instability in culture. We describe here an approach to screening for agents with epithelial
CSC-specific toxicity. We implemented this method in a chemical screen and discovered compounds showing selective toxicity for breast CSCs.
In addition, global gene expression analyses show that salinomycin treatment results in the loss of expression of breast CSC genes previously identified by analyses of breast tissues isolated directly from patients. This study demonstrates the ability to identify agents with specific toxicity for epithelial CSCs.
Identification of Selective Inhibitors of Cancer Stem Cells by High-Throughput creening
Piyush B. Gupta1, Tamer T. Onder1, Guozhi Jiang1, Kai Tao, Charlotte
Kuperwasser, Robert A. Weinberg1, and Eric S. Lander1
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