| The cell surface marker CD133 has been used to identify and isolate brain tumour stem cells (BTSCs) from primary tumour specimens. While CD133 enriches for BTSCs, it does not definitively purify. This body of work summarizes our results of using FACS-based purification strategies to subdivide and purify CD133+ BTSCs. We have investigated the use of various cell surface markers for their ability to enrich for neural stem cells (NSCs) from mouse embryonic forebrain and human foetal central nervous system (CNS) tissues. We demonstrate that CD15 and CD44 can be used in conjunction to enrich for a highly proliferative, neurosphere-initiating subset of cells from the embryonic mouse forebrain. Furthermore, we demonstrate that CD15 can be used to further enrich CD133+ human foetal CNS-derived cells. Analysis of human brain tumour specimens demonstrates that these markers can subdivide the CD133+ fraction of BTSCs and warrants their use as potential markers for purification. |
