Urology, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Characterization of Prostate Stem Cells Cultured as Prostaspheres

Funding:

Prostate Cancer Foundation

Principal Investigator:

Wade Bushman, MD

Lab Website:

Dr. Bushman's Lab

Project Summary:

Androgen independent prostate cancer has been postulated to arise from a small fraction of tumor cells with features of tissue-specific stem cells. The study of tumor stem cells and tissue-specific stem cells has been hampered by lack of an effective method to isolate, identify and characterize cells with stem cell properties. This proposal addresses the hypothesis that anchorage independent culture maintains a population of pleuripotent prostate stem cells. We propose to culture freshly isolated prostate epithelial cells in anchorage-independent "prostaspheres" and to characterize the ability of cells maintained in anchorage-independent culture to exhibit stem cell properties in a tissue recombination assay.

Referring Physicians Please Click Here