Wen-Ting Liu, Ying-Ying Jing, Guo-Feng Yu, Zhi-Peng Han, Dan-Dan Yu, Qing-Min Fan, Fei Ye, Rong Li, Lu Gao, Qiu-Dong Zhao, Meng-Chao Wu, Li-Xin Wei
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor-initiating cells (TICs), a small subset of tumor cells, are involved in tumor initiation, progression, recurrence and metastasis. In human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), TICs are enriched with cell surface markers and play a key role in chemotherapy resistance, tumor invasion and migration. Toll like receptor 4 (TLR4), acting as a receptor for lipopolysaccharide (LPS), has been reported to be responsible for carcinogenesis, invasion, metastasis and cancer progression. In our study, two HCC cell lines and a splenic vein metastasis of the nude mouse model were used to study the invasive ability of TLR4 positive HCC cells in vitro and in vivo...
March 28, 2015: Cancer Letters