Altered expression of microRNAs in PC-3 sphere cells of prostate cancer compared with PC-3 adherent cells

Metastatic prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death in men. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are involved in tumor progression and metastasis, including in prostate cancer. There is an obvious and urgent need for effective cancer stem cells specific therapies in metastatic prostate cancer. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an important class of pervasive genes that are involved in a variety of biological functions, especially in cancer. The goal of this study was to identify miRNAs involved in prostate cancer metastasis and cancer stem cells. Several published reports have demonstrated that non-adherent spheres culture is increasingly used as an effective method to enrich and identify stem cells or putative CSCs.In our previous study, we enriched prostate cancer stem cells from PC-3 sphere cells in serum-free suspension culture and characterized their CSCs properties.Thus, we used spheres as a prostate cancer stem cells model to elucidate its metastatic mechanisms. We examined the miRNA expression profiles of PC-3 sphere cells of prostate cancer compared with PC-3 adherent cells by miRNA microarray.