Detection of minor subpopulations of colorectal adenocarcinoma cells expressing cancer stem cell markers.

The expression of puitative surface molecular markers of cancer stem cells on human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells was analyzed by flow cytofluorometry. Cell subpopulations expressing markers of epithelial and malignant cells and stem cell markers were identified. Four minor subpopulations with CD24(+)/CD133(+), CD44(+)/CD133(+), CD90(+)/CD71(+), or CD90(+)/CD24(+) phenotypes meeting this requirement were detected; presumably, those were cancer stem cell subpopulations. These results extend our knowledge on heterogeneity of human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell population and outline new trends of research of cancer stem cell phenotype in these tumors.