Not sure about media composition but providing growth factors in normal culture medium should increase the cancer stem cell population to certain extent. Generally cancer stem cells will not get differentiated in culture medium, they go into dormant stage very easily after isolation from cancer cell line niche.

We used to treat breast cancer cell lines with growth factors in medium to increase cancer stem cell population- followed by facs sorting and bringing back to culture and maintain them in medium with growth factors. You might be aware that the amount of cancer stem cell population in a cancer cell flask is 0.01-0.5% right.. So if ur procedure includes isolation of cancer stem cells and then maintaining seperately the only medium should have growth factors (FGF, EGF, B27 were used for breast cancer stem cell population enhancement)

The only issue one would face is they are aggressive growing cells, so u cannot expect them to differentiate with out any triggering agent.

Hi Mr. Goutham Nageshwar,

Thank you for your prompt reply. It was helpful.

Hi,

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) are the commonly used to maintain stem cells in an undifferentiated state.

Good luck!