Purpose: Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-like cells, a subpopulation of tumor microenvironment, have been isolated from several tumor tissues. In our previous study, we identified MSC-like cells in human gastric cancer tissues and found their characteristics to be similar to those of bone marrow MSCs. However, whether there are MSC-like cells in adjacent non-cancerous tissues and any difference between the MSC-like cells derived from tumor and non-cancerous tissues are not clear. The aim of this study is to study and research the differences of two mesenchymal stem-like cells.
Methods: We demonstrate that MSC-like cells can be isolated from both human gastric tumor (hGC-MSCs) and adjacent non-cancerous tissues (hGCN-MSCs) of the same patient. We further compared the characteristics between hGC-MSCs and hGCN-MSCs.
Results: Our results revealed that hGC-MSCs and hGCN-MSCs possessed similar morphological properties; stem cell-associated gene expression, as well as multipotential differentiation capability. We also found differences in cell surface markers, pluripotency, and proliferation-related gene expression between hGCN-MSCs and hGC-MSCs.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that MSC-like cells are components of the tumor microenvironment and provide proof for the origin of carcinoma-associated fibroblast, therefore may potentially be used as a target for gastric cancer diagnosis and therapy.