Abstract 1721: Desmoplasia stem and progenitor cells within the tumor microenvironment

All developing and adult organs are supported by connective tissues. We recently demonstrated that Gremlin 1 expressing cells in the bone (osteochondroreticular stem cells) and the bowel (intestinal reticular stem cells) are connective tissue stem cells, during development and healing. The contribution of these stem cells to the desmoplasia surrounding gastrointestinal and skeletal cancers, however, is unknown. In this study we first established that typical markers of bone marrow skeletal stem cells, also identify colony forming unit-fibroblasts (CFU-Fs) in the tumour microenvironment (identified by CD45-Ter-119-CD31-CD1040a+CD105+). Next we tested the local origins of alpha-smooth muscle actin (Acta2) expressing cancer-associated fibroblasts in orthotopic (colonoscopically delivered MC38 and carcinogenesis AOM/DSS) mouse models of colorectal cancer. Using transgenic mouse models to lineage trace and report the connective tissues in the bone and bowel, including Grem1-creERT;R26-LSL-ZsGreen; Acta2-RFP and our Acta2-CreERT line, we found that normal Grem1-expressing and Acta2-expressing cells each contribute to some, but not all, of the reactive cancer-associated fibroblasts surrounding our mouse models of cancer. Whilst, neoplastic cells appear to make a significant contribution to cancer-associated fibroblasts in some other cancers, using an epithelial specific Cre (K19-cre) there was no contribution of epithelium to Acta2-expressing cells in our AOM-DSS colorectal cancer models. We investigated Grem1 and Acta2 derived cells from the tumor microenvironment and found that these cells were clonagenic. Finally, we compared their capacity to support the in vitro growth of colorectal normal and neoplastic organoids compared to other colonic mesenchymal cell types. We are currently examining the role of these cells on expanding intestinal stem cells in normal and neoplastic gastrointestinal glands and examining the secreted factors from these cells that are relevant to tumor initiation and spread. Citation Format: Tamsin Lannagan, Susan Woods, Laura Vrbanac, Miao Yang, Jia Ng, Tongtong Wang, Yagnesh Tailor, Samuel Asfaha, Timothy Wang, Daniel L. Worthley. Desmoplasia stem and progenitor cells within the tumor microenvironment. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1721.