looking for stromal cell marker - (Feb/03/2010 )

Hi guys,

I have some mouse tumor cells I need to pin down the lineage origin. we suspect these cells are from epithelial lineage(they have epithelial morphology), but they stained negative for E-cadherin. Now we want to determine if these cells are stromal cells and looking for a good marker(s). if it matters, the cells are isolated from mouse prostate tumor.

Thank you so much, I'd appreciate it!

Hi,

instead of using a stromal marker, I would suggest to check for cytokeratin expression. A stromal intermediate filament would be vimentin but unfortunately in culture epithlial cells also tend to express vimentin. Stromal cells however do not express cytokeratin. If you like, you can check the following Paper for more information:

Identification of an Invasive, N-Cadherin-Expressing Epithelial Cell Type in Endometriosis Using a New Cell Culture Model


Cheers
Alexander