To examine the effect of NEAPP on cancer-initiating cells (CICs) that are believed to cause recurrence or metastasis due to their resistance to anti-cancer drugs, the treatment of nonequilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma (NEAPP) combined with anti-cancer drug cisplatin and NEAPP irradiation of tumor xenograft mice are performed in human uterine endometrioid adenocarcinoma cells. NEAPP treatment affects both ALDH-low (non-CICs) and ALDH-high cells (CICs) more efficiently than cisplatin. In tumor xenograft mice, ALDH expression reduces in tumor with NEAPP irradiation. These results suggest that NEAPP treatment is effective not only on non-CICs but also on CICs.
Cancer-initiating cells (CICs) are specialized cells that have the ability to self-renew and are multipotent. We recently demonstrated that Forkhead box O3a (FoxO3a)-expressing cells exhibited a CIC-like potential in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL). A proportion of HL patients are infected with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). EBV-encoded latent membrane protein (LMP) 1 downregulates FoxO3a, suggesting that FoxO3a expression may be abolished in EBV-positive HL. Inhibitors of DNA-binding (ID) proteins are highly conserved transcription factors mediating stem cell functions. To the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated possible associations among ID1, FoxO3a and LMP1 expression in HL to date. We immunohistochemically evaluated the expression of the three abovementioned factors in HL patients. The ID1 expression level was inversely correlated with that of FoxO3a (P=0.00035). LMP1-positive HL cells abundantly expressed ID1 (P=0.029), but not FoxO3a (P=0.00085). Thus, our previous observation that FoxO3a may serve as a marker of CICs may not be applicable in EBV-positive HL patients, but rather ID1 may be a candidate CIC marker in this type of HL.
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