The repopulating cancer cells in melanoma are characterized by increased mitochondrial membrane potential

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304383516305122

Don G. Lee, Beom K. Choi, Young H. Kim, Ho S. Oh, Sang H. Park, Young Soo Bae, Byoung S. Kwon

In this study, the authors investigate whether mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨ) serves as a biomarker of higher proliferative potential in melanoma cells. The authors found that tumour cells which survived stressors such as serum starvation and cisplatin treatment had substantially higher ΔΨ. Furthermore, upon sorting cells into categories of low and high ΔΨ, the authors found that high-ΔΨ cells tended to induce tumour growth whereas low-ΔΨ could not, for doses of 10^5 cells/mouse: this was demonstrated for cells grown in vitro as well as sorted tumour cells grown in vivo.