Masanori Ono, Wenan Qiang, Vanida Ann Serna, Ping Yin, John S. Coon, Antonia Navarro, Diana Monsivais, Toshiyuki Kakinuma, Matthew Dyson, Stacy Druschitz, Kenji Unno, Takeshi Kurita, Serdar E. Bulun

Uterine leiomyoma is the most common benign tumor in reproductive-age women. Each leiomyoma is thought to be a benign monoclonal tumor arising from a single transformed myometrial smooth muscle cell; however, it is not known what leiomyoma cell type is responsible for tumor growth. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that a distinct stem/reservoir cell-enriched population, designated as the leiomyoma-derived side population (LMSP), is responsible for cell proliferation and tumor growth.