Figure 1

Mammosphere cells contained subpopulations of cells expressing prospective BCSC markers. (A) FACS analysis to measure CD44 and CD24 expression of cells derived from MCF7 monolayer cultures (left) or primary mammospheres (right), which were cultured in suspension for six days. The expression of CD44⁺CD24^- in mammosphere cells was (7.9 ± 0.8%), compared with (1.9 ± 0.1%) for the monolayer culture cells, P < 0.01. A minimum of 10,000 events were collected per sample. (B) qRT-PCR showed that Notch2 and β-catenin mRNA expression in mammosphere cells were at higher levels by around 4.0 and 3.1 fold than that in monolayer cells, respectively, P < 0.01. The data were provided as the mean ± SD. Each experiment was performed three times.