Enrichment of Cancer Stem Cells in a Tumorsphere Assay

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small subpopulation of self-renewing cancer cells that are present within tumors. CSCs possess tumor initiation potential as well as the ability to resist toxic compounds and chemotherapeutic agents through the upregulation of drug efflux transporters, DNA repair pathways, and survival cascades. Accumulating evidence suggests that CSCs are responsible for tumor relapse and resistance to chemotherapeutic agents and that targeting CSCs is critical to inhibition of cancer progression. Therefore, isolation and characterization of CSCs is important in studying tumor initiation and progression. In this chapter, we provide a detailed method for the identification and isolation of CSCs.