CXCR6, a newly defined biomarker of tissue-specific stem cell asymmetric self-renewal, identifies more aggressive human melanoma cancer stem cells

A fundamental problem in cancer research is identifying the cell type that is capable of sustaining neoplastic growth and its origin from normal tissue cells. Recent investigations of a variety of tumor types have shown that phenotypically identifiable and isolable subfractions of cells possess the tumor-forming ability.
In the present paper, using two lineage-related human melanoma cell lines, primary melanoma line IGR39 and its metastatic derivative line IGR37, two main contributes are reported. The first one is the first phenotypic evidence to support the origin of melanoma cancer stem cells (CSCs) from mutated tissue-specific stem cells and the second one is the identification of a more aggressive subpopulation CXCR6+ in melanoma.

We defined CXCR6 as a new biomarker for tissue-specific stem cell asymmetric self-renewal. Thus, the relationship between melanoma formation and ABCG2 and CXCR6 expression was investigated. Consistent with their non-metastatic character, unsorted IGR39 cells formed significantly smaller tumors than unsorted IGR37 cells. In addition, ABCG2+ tumors gave a 2-fold greater mass than tumors from unsorted cells or ABCG2- cells. Furthermore, CXCR6+ cells produced more aggressive tumors. These findings show that CXCR6 identifies a more discrete subpopulation of cultured human melanoma cells with a more aggressive melanoma cancer stem cell phenotype than cells selected on the basis of ABCG2, and CXCR6+/ABCG2+ expression
The association of a more aggressive tumor phenotype with asymmetric self-renewal phenotype reveals a previously unrecognized aspect of tumor cell physiology. Namely, the retention of some tissue-specific stem cell attributes, like the ability to preserve self-phenotype, impacts the natural history of human tumor development. Knowledge of this new aspect of tumor progression may provide new targets for cancer prevention and treatment.

No relevant conflicts of interest declared.