Francipane Maria Giovanna, Alea Mileidys Perez, Lombardo Ylenia, Todaro Matilde, Medema J P, Stassi Giorgio
Department of Surgical and Oncological Sciences, Cellular and Molecular Pathophysiology Laboratory, Palermo, Italy.
Cancer Res. 2008 Jun 1;68(11):4022-5. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-07-6874.
Colon tumors may be maintained by a rare fraction of cancer stem-like cells (CSC) that express the cell surface marker CD133. Self-renewing CSCs exhibit relatively greater resistance to clinical cytotoxic therapies and recent work suggests that this resistance may be mediated in part by an autocrine response to the immune cytokine interleukin 4 (IL-4). Blocking IL-4 signaling can sensitize CSCs to apoptotic stimuli and increase the in vivo efficacy of cytotoxic therapy. These findings suggest that inhibitors of IL-4 signaling may offer a new therapeutic tool in colon carcinoma.
结肠肿瘤可能由一小部分表达细胞表面标志物CD133的癌症干细胞样细胞（CSC）维持。自我更新的CSC对临床细胞毒性疗法表现出相对更强的抗性，并且最近的研究表明，这种抗性可能部分由对免疫细胞因子白细胞介素4（IL-4）的自分泌反应介导。阻断IL-4信号传导可使CSC对凋亡刺激敏感，并提高细胞毒性疗法的体内疗效。这些发现表明，IL-4信号传导抑制剂可能为结肠癌提供一种新的治疗工具。
