Cells, Free Full-Text

Cancer stem cells play a crucial role in tumor initiation, metastasis, and resistance to treatment. Cellular heterogeneity and plasticity complicate the isolation of cancer stem cells. The impact of intra-tumor cellular heterogeneity using a label-free approach remains understudied in the context of treatment resistance. Here, we use the sedimentation field–flow fractionation technique to separate, without labeling, cell subpopulations of colorectal cancer cell lines and primary cultures according to their biophysical properties. One of the three sorted cell subpopulations exhibits characteristics of cancer stem cells, including high tumorigenicity in vivo and a higher frequency of tumor-initiating cells compared to the other subpopulations. Due to its chemoresistance, two- and three-dimensional in vitro chemosensitivity assays highlight the therapeutic relevance of this cancer stem cell subpopulation. Thus, our results reveal the major implication of intra-tumor cellular heterogeneity, including cancer stem cells in treatment resistance, thanks to our label-free cell sorting approach. This approach enables—by breaking down the tumor—the study the individualized response of each sorted tumor cell subpopulation and to identify chemoresistance, thus offering new perspectives for personalized therapy.

Advances and applications of cell-free systems for metabolic

Cell-free Macromolecular Synthesis

Towards reproducible cell-free systems

Nt Novo Cella Get File - Colaboratory

Polimer Program Get File - Colaboratory

Cell-free gene expression: an expanded repertoire of applications

Extracellular histones, cell-free DNA, or nucleosomes: differences

Rapid cell-free forward engineering of novel genetic ring

Continuous-Flow and Continuous-Exchange Cell-Free Translation

IJMS, Free Full-Text

Labile coat: reason for noninfectious cell-free varicella-zoster

Remote immune processes revealed by immune-derived circulating