Crawford Nigel P S, Hunter Kent W
Laboratory of Population Genetics, National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health, Building 41, Room D702, 41 Library Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Trends Genet. 2006 Oct;22(10):555-61. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2006.07.009. Epub 2006 Aug 4.
Metastasis, the process by which cancer cells spread to distant sites and form secondary tumors, depends upon the ability of cells to escape the primary tumor, and colonize and proliferate in a novel microenvironment. Many mechanisms have been proposed to explain this phenomenon although no theory has comprehensively explained all biological observations. There is growing evidence that host hereditary factors modulate the ability of tumor cells to form metastatic lesions, and host genetic polymorphism could be a significant variable in this process. This review is intended to illustrate the role of hereditary variation in metastatic progression, how this integrates with currently proposed metastatic mechanisms, and the potential clinical impact on this frequently fatal consequence of cancer.
转移是癌细胞扩散到远处部位并形成继发性肿瘤的过程，它取决于细胞逃离原发肿瘤并在新的微环境中定植和增殖的能力。尽管没有一种理论能全面解释所有生物学观察结果，但人们已经提出了许多机制来解释这一现象。越来越多的证据表明，宿主遗传因素会调节肿瘤细胞形成转移病灶的能力，而宿主基因多态性可能是这一过程中的一个重要变量。这篇综述旨在阐述遗传变异在转移进展中的作用、它如何与目前提出的转移机制相结合，以及对癌症这一致命后果的潜在临床影响。
