Author(s)

Pravin Potdar, Sachin Chaugule

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Breast cancer remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in women mainly because of the propensity of primary breast tumors to metastasize. It is composed of heterogeneous cell populations with different biological properties. Breast cancer-initiating cells have been recently identified in breast carcinoma as CD44⁺/CD24^-/low cells, which display stem cell like properties. In the present study, we have isolated breast cancer stem cells from non-metastasis tumor tissue, which is presently at passage 18 and designated as human Breast Cancer Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hBCMSCs) line. These cells showed spindle shaped morphology and formed mammos-pheres as well as pluripotency clones indicating their stem cell nature. Molecular marker study confirmed mesenchymal nature as well as pluripotency, plasticity and oncogenicity of these cells. The hBCMSCs cell line may likely contain a heterogeneous population of malignant cells. Interestingly, we also found that these cells exhibit BRCA 2 mutation, which was found in Indian population. Overall, this study revealed that hBCMSCs cell line may represent a suitable in vitro model to study the mechanism of breast cancer which further leads to an identification of molecular targets for future breast cancer targeted therapy.

Breast Cancer Stem Cells; Breast Cancer, BRCA2; Mesenchymal Stem Cells; Molecular Markers

Potdar, P. and Chaugule, S. (2011) Establishment and molecular characterization of breast cancer mesenchymal stem cell line derived from human non-metastasis breast cancer tumor. Stem Cell Discovery, 1, 21-28. doi: 10.4236/scd.2011.12003.