Sphere-formation Assay to assess cell self-renew ability (CAT#: STEM-CBT-0017-WXH)

Introduction

The ability to form spheres is an important method for the identification of tumor stem cells in vitro. It assesses the ability of a single cell to self-renew in the conditioned medium, which is generally expressed by the sphere formation efficiency (SFE). The sphere formation test of tumor cells (the size and number of spheres) is the gold standard to measure the stemness and migration ability of tumor cells.
Traditionally, cancer stem cells are isolated from cancer cell lines and tumor biopsy tissues, which can differentiate into different phenotypes, have the ability of continuous self-renewal and differentiation, and can be cultured in serum-free medium supplemented with growth factors to form cell ball. For some tumors (such as glioma, breast cancer), the tumor stem cells are relatively easy to form spheres when cultured in vitro, while other epithelial tumors (such as liver cancer, colon cancer, etc.) are relatively difficult to form spheres.