Background
and Objective: Melanoma is the most
deadly
type of skin
cancer that
has a high
potency
and
rapid
metastasis
to other
organs.
It appears that
cancer stem
cells (CSCs) are
responsible for
invasion and
metastasis. The
aim of
this study
was to investigate the
expression of cancer
stem
cells candidate
markers
and their
association with stemness features in melanoma cell lines.   Materials and Methods: The expression levels of CD133, CD44 and ABCG2
were measured in melanoma cell lines (WM115, NA8, SK-MEL, Me67, A375 and D10) by flow cytometry. Then, selected cell line
was sorted up on the expression of selected stem cell marker
into positive
and negative populations. Afterward, The potential of cologenic, spheroid formation and expression of stem
genes including NANOG, SOX2, OCT4 and KLF4 was
estimated in positive, negative
and unsorted cells.   Results: Our results demonstrated that 28.65 ±
1.85% of D10 cell line expressed
CD133. However, CD44 and ABCG2 were or (not) expressed in all cell lines. The CD133+ sorted cells showed an increase
in colony formation about 1.64 fold (p < 0.05) and melanospheres about 2.2 fold (p=000) as compared to CD133-. The evaluation of stemness genes
expression determined the significance of up-regulation of NANOG and OCT4
in CD133+ and SOX2 in CD133- respectively. There was no difference in KLF4 expression
between the two
groups.   Conclusion: Findings of this research showed that
CD133
can
be considered
as
stem-like
cells marker in
D10 cell line
and other melanoma cells which expressed CD133.