Ponti Dario, Zaffaroni Nadia, Capelli Chiara, Daidone Maria Grazia
Translational Research Unit, Unit 10, Department of Experimental Oncology and Laboratories, Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori, Via Venezian, 1, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Eur J Cancer. 2006 Jun;42(9):1219-24. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2006.01.031. Epub 2006 Apr 19.
The theory that cancer may be originated and sustained by a small proportion of stem-like, self-renewing cells (termed 'cancer stem cells') has gained support in recent years. Breast cancer stem cells have been identified as CD44+CD24- breast tumour cells and have recently been isolated and propagated in vitro. It has been demonstrated that these cells exclusively retain the ability to form new tumours in mouse models and that they display stem/progenitor cell properties. The ability to identify breast cancer stem cells in vivo and to propagate them in vitro provides the means to compare them with normal cells, in order to investigate from which cell they originate, which molecular alterations critically affect them, and how they interact with the microenvironment. Elucidation of these critical points is essential to develop new therapeutic strategies and to improve diagnosis and prognosis for breast cancer patients.
癌症可能由一小部分具有干细胞样、自我更新能力的细胞（称为“癌症干细胞”）引发并维持，这一理论近年来得到了支持。乳腺癌干细胞已被鉴定为CD44+CD24-乳腺肿瘤细胞，并且最近已在体外分离和增殖。已经证明，这些细胞在小鼠模型中唯一保留形成新肿瘤的能力，并且它们表现出干细胞/祖细胞特性。在体内鉴定乳腺癌干细胞并在体外增殖它们的能力提供了将它们与正常细胞进行比较的手段，以便研究它们起源于哪种细胞、哪些分子改变对它们有至关重要的影响以及它们如何与微环境相互作用。阐明这些关键点对于开发新的治疗策略以及改善乳腺癌患者的诊断和预后至关重要。
