Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most fatal malignancies worldwide, and CD133 is a popular cancer stem cell (CSC) marker for HCC. CD133+ CSCs have been reported to resist conventional chemo- and radiotherapy, but little is known about their response to immune surveillance. Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) is one of key cytokines that the immune system produce to eradicate cancer cells, so we investigated the function of IFN-γ on CD133+ HCC CSCs in this study. Methods: The response of CD133+ cells to IFN-γ was performed with functional assays (cell proliferation assay and tumor formation in nude mice), flow cytometry, immunofluorescence staining and RNA interference. Results: We found that IFN-γ inhibited the proliferation of cell lines with low percentage of CD133+ cells (wild-type human cells, BEL7402, QGY7701) but it did not affect the proliferation of cell lines with high percentage of CD133+ cells (wild-type human cells, Huh7, PLC8024) in vivo and in vitro (nude mice). Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that the percentage of CD133+ cells increased after IFN-γ treatment of low CD133+ cell lines. Furthermore, IFN-γ induced the autophagy of low CD133+ cell lines to decrease proliferation. Conclusion: CD133+ HCC CSCs resisted IFN-γ-induced autophagy, which might also be a mechanism through which CSCs resist immune eradication.
CITATION STYLE
Li, J., Chen, J. N., Zeng, T. T., He, F., Chen, S. P., Ma, S., … Guan, X. Y. (2016). CD133+ liver cancer stem cells resist interferon-gamma-induced autophagy. BMC Cancer, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-016-2050-6
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