Fusion of human bone hemopoietic stem cell with esophageal carcinoma cells didn't generate esophageal cancer stem cell.

Prior studies showed that cell fusion between bone marrow-derived cell (BMDC) and somatic cell might be the origin of cancer stem cell. Our previous study suggested that cell fusion of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) with esophageal cancer cell did not generate cancer stem cells. But up to now, the origin of cancer stem cell is still ambiguous. In this study, we carried out the cell fusion experiment between hemopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and human esophageal cancer cells, and found that cell fusion slowed the growth speed of esophageal cancer cells and decreased the clone formation ability and tumorigenicity in NOD/SCID mice. In addition, cell fusion did not increase the ratio of side population (SP) cells and the resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. Collectively, our data indicated that cell fusion between HSCs and esophageal cancer cells has a therapeutic effect rather than generate cells with characteristics of esophageal cancer stem cells.