Enrichment of cancer stem cells based on heterogeneity of invasiveness.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have multiple potentials in carcinogenesis and tumor progression. However, it is rather difficult to enrich and amplify CSCs either from tumor cell lines or even primary tumor tissues. Therefore, establishing new methodologies for isolation and enrichment based on the functional properties of CSCs is of great importance for studies on CSCs. According to the findings that CSCs possess more infiltrative capability as compared with their differentiated descendants, we propose a novel strategy based on heterogeneity of cancer cell invasiveness for isolation and enrichment of CSCs from committed cancer cell population. In addition, we hypothesize that existence of CSCs might be the real root of tumor invasion and metastasis.