Expression of an Exogenous Human Oct-4 Promoter Identifies Tumor-Initiating Cells in Osteosarcoma

We explored the nature of the tumor-initiating cell in osteosarcoma, a bone malignancy that predominately occurs in children. Previously, we observed expression of Oct-4, an embryonal transcriptional regulator, in osteosarcoma cell cultures and tissues. To examine the relationship between Oct-4 and tumorigenesis, cells from an osteosarcoma biopsy (OS521) were stably transfected with a plasmid containing the human Oct-4 promoter driving a green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter to generate the transgenic line OS521Oct-4p. In culture, only ∼24% of the OS521Oct-4p cells were capable of activating the transgenic Oct-4 promoter; yet, xenograft tumors generated in NOD/SCID mice contained ∼67% GFP+ cells, which selectively expressed the mesenchymal stem cell–associated surface antigens CD105 and ICAM-1. Comparison of the tumor-forming capacity of GFP-enriched and GFP-depleted cell fractions revealed that the GFP-enriched fractions were at least 100-fold more tumorigenic, capable of forming tumors at doses of