Figure 6. Ovarian cancer CD44⁺CD117⁺ cells resist in vitro and in vivo glucose deprivation, while maintaining their CSC properties.

A. Unfractionated EOC ascitic effusion cells were cultured in the presence (+Glu) or absence (-Glu) of glucose for 14 days; cell viability (left panel) and the percentage of CD44⁺CD117⁺ cells (right panel) were evaluated at different time points. Shown are mean values ± SD from ten consecutive experiments. *p < 0.05. B. Flow cytometry analysis of cell viability (upper panel) and CD44/CD117 co-expression (lower panel) of unfractionated EOC effusion cells cultured in the presence of the glucose analogue 2-DG. One representative experiment out of three is shown. C. Six RAG-2 γ^−/− mice were injected with 5 × 10⁵ cells/flank from EOC effusion xenografts; when the tumors reached a volume of 100 mm³, 3 animals were treated with 2-DG, and 3 received saline as a control (CTRL). The left panel shows the kinetics of tumor growth, and the right panel reports the percentage of CD44⁺CD117⁺ cells in the resulting tumor masses. Data are mean values ± SD for six tumors/group. *p < 0.05 D. unfractionated EOC effusion cells were cultured in the presence (+Glu) or absence (-Glu) of glucose. After 14 days the ability to generate spheroids was evaluated by ELDA. Shown are the mean values of spheroid-forming precursors/10³ cells ± SD in five consecutive experiments. *p < 0.05. E. RAG-2 γ^−/− mice were injected with 1 × 10⁵ cells/flank from EOC effusion xenografts. Before inoculation, the cells were cultured for two weeks in standard medium (upper panel) or in medium without glucose (lower panel).