Cancer stem cells in acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Different models were suggested for cancer development. One of them is cancer stem cell model. In this model, Invasion, relapse and resistance to anti-cancer drugs were seen in cancerous cells are related to these cells. Recently, weobserved that some of population in T-Acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell line display cancer stem cell properties. These cells were detected by CD133 marker. In vitro transwell assay showed that CD133 + Jurkat cells were more invasive than CD133 - Jurkat cells and also gene expression analysis confirmed CD133 + Jurkat cells expressed MMP9 gene in high levels. After treatment of CD133 + cells with doxorubicin, Annexin-PI staining showed that these cells have high resistance to chemotherapy drug. We demonstrated chemotherapy resistance may be because of up regulation of ABCG2 gene. In addition, CD133 + cells had unrestricted proliferation potential and were able to differentiate to cells with low growth potential (CD133 - ). Altogether; we demonstrated that CD133 could be as a marker to recognize cancer stem cells in Jurkat cell line.