Patent ID: 8357492

Claim:
A method for selecting a potential therapeutic agent for use in the treatment of CD133+ tumor cells, said method comprising the steps of: (a) providing a sample of fresh digestive system tumor tissue or gastrointestinal tumor tissue comprising undifferentiated tumorigenic CD133+ cells; (b) selectively culturing and expanding the undifferentiated tumorigenic CD133+ cells as spherical clusters in serum-free medium comprising epidermal growth factor and fibroblast growth factor-2; (c) contacting the cultured undifferentiated tumorigenic CD133+ digestive system cells or the cultured undifferentiated tumorigenic CD133+ gastrointestinal tumor cells with a test compound; (d) determining the number of CD133+ cells in the culture contacted with the test agent; (e) detecting CD133+ cells in a culture not treated with the test agent whereby a potential therapeutic agent for use in the treatment of CD133+ tumor cells is identified when the number of undifferentiated tumorigenic CD133+ cells are reduced in the culture-treated with the test compound as compared to the number of undifferentiated tumorigenic CD133+ cells in the culture not treated with the test compound.