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In Vitro Self-Renewal Assays for Brain Tumor Stem Cells

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Book cover Brain Tumor Stem Cells

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1869))

Abstract

Early development of human organisms relies on stem cells, a population of non-specialized cells that can divide symmetrically to give rise to two identical daughter cells, or divide asymmetrically to produce one identical daughter cell and another more specialized cell. The capacity to undergo cellular divisions while maintaining an undifferentiated state is termed self-renewal and is responsible for the maintenance of stem cell populations during development. In addition, self-renewal plays a crucial role in the homeostasis of developed organism through replacement of defective cells.

Similar to their non-malignant counterparts, it has been postulated that tumor cells follow a differentiation hierarchy, with the least differentiated cells termed cancer stem cells (CSCs) at the apex. These tumor stem cells possess the ability to self-renew, have a higher capacity to initiate tumor growth when xenografted into an animal model, and can recapitulate the cell heterogeneity of the tumor they originate from. Hence, further investigation of mechanisms governing the self-renewal in cancer can lead to development of novel therapies targeting CSCs.

In this chapter, we described the soft agar assay and the limiting dilution assay (LDA) as two easy-to-implement and inexpensive assays to measure the stemness properties of brain tumor stem cells (BTSCs). These techniques constitute useful tools for the preclinical evaluation of therapeutic strategies targeting BTSCs clonogenicity.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Mathieu Seyfrid, David Bobrowski, David Bakhshinyan & Nazanin Tatari

  2. Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    David Bobrowski

  3. Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    David Bakhshinyan, Nazanin Tatari & Sheila K. Singh

  4. Department of Surgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Chitra Venugopal

  5. Department of Surgery, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Sheila K. Singh

  6. Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Chitra Venugopal & Sheila K. Singh

Authors
  1. Mathieu Seyfrid
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  2. David Bobrowski
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  3. David Bakhshinyan
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  4. Nazanin Tatari
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  5. Chitra Venugopal
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  6. Sheila K. Singh
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sheila K. Singh .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Sheila K. Singh

  2. Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Chitra Venugopal

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Seyfrid, M., Bobrowski, D., Bakhshinyan, D., Tatari, N., Venugopal, C., Singh, S.K. (2019). In Vitro Self-Renewal Assays for Brain Tumor Stem Cells. In: Singh, S., Venugopal, C. (eds) Brain Tumor Stem Cells. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1869. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8805-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8805-1_7

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-8804-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-8805-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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