Figure 1.

Enrichment and characterization of liver cancer stem cells (LCSCs) from HCCLM3 cells. (A) Morphological characteristics of HCCLM3 and sphere-forming cells (SFCs); process of sphere formation from a single P3 SFC (scale bar = 50 μm). (B) Comparison of the clonogenicity of HCCLM3 cells and SFCs in vitro. (C) Detection of the surface markers CD133 and CD44. (D) Detection of stemness genes. (E) Drug resistance analysis of SFCs and HCCLM3 cells. HCCLM3 cells and SFCs were treated with 5-FU and sorafenib for 12 h. Cell survival was determined by a CCK8 assay. Relative values are presented as the means ± standard deviation (SD) of three independent experiments. n = 3; * p < 0.05 and ** p < 0.01.