Cancer stem cells are a minority population of cells in tumors that initiate and sustain the cancer and which are resistant to therapy; they may cause tumors to recur after curative treatment. Current therapies generally do not target cancer stem cells.
Scientists at the National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics have developed an efficient lentiviral plasmid to visualize and purify cancer stem cells, which is useful for screening compounds that specifically kill or inhibit cancer stem cells. The NCI lentiviral plasmid can identify the putative cancer stem cell population through the expression of fluorescent or luminescent proteins and has the potential to advance new therapies. The key feature of the plasmid is a reporter system that only detects cells expressing the core stem cell transcription factors Sox2 and Oct4.