[Expression and its significance of CD44 in SP cells of nasopharyngeal carcinoma].

OBJECTIVE: Discussion of expression and its significance of CD44 in SP cells of nasopnaryngeal carcinoma. METHOD: Flow cytometry was used to sort cultured CNE-2 cells of nasopharyngeal carcinoma for obtaining CD44-SP and CD44+SP cells. Biological differences of CNE-2, CNE-2 SP, CNE-2 NSP, CNE-2 CD44+SP and CNE-2 CD44-SP cells were statistically analyzed by experiments such as cell migration experiments, plate clone formation assay, cell cycle analysis and sensitivity tests to chemotherapeutics. RESULT: Two point 3 perent of SP cells were extracted from CNE-2 cells of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, among which 36.5% was CD44+SP cells. Abilities of proliferation, cell migration and plate clone of CD44+SP cells were significantly higher than other cells (P < 0.01), and its tolerance to chemotherapeutics was significantly higher too (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The proportion of SP cells in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells was small, but SP cells had strong activeness in the aspect of cell proliferation with a "seed" characteristic of tumor cells. As CD44+SP cells played an important role in proliferation and chemotherapy resistance of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, it indicated that CD44 can be one of the surface markers of SP cells of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.