Abstract 3056: Lung tumor spheres as in vitro platform for testing new therapeutic strategies against cancer stem cells

Abstract Background: Treatment resistance is related to cancer stem cells (CSCs), a highly tumorigenic subpopulation of cells capable of growing and forming tumor spheres under non-adherent conditions. This study aimed to isolate and characterise CSCs from resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients' tumor-tissue and cell lines like tumor spheres and to use them as an in vitro platform for drug screening. Methods: The study was performed on tumour cells from 8 resected NSCLC patients and 12 NSCLC cell lines grown in monolayer and as spheres. The expression of 60 genes, including CSC-markers, pluripotency inducers, cell cycle regulators and components of the Notch, Wnt and Hedgehog …