Risbridger Gail P, Taylor Renea A
Centre for Urological Research, Monash Institute of Medical Research, Monash University, 27-31 Wright Street, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia.
Endocrinology. 2008 Sep;149(9):4303-6. doi: 10.1210/en.2008-0465. Epub 2008 Jun 5.
The isolation and characterization of prostatic stem cells has received significant attention in the last few years based on the belief that aberrant regulation of adult stem cells leads to prostate disease including cancer. The nature of the perturbations in stem cell regulation remains largely unknown. Although adult stem cells are can be governed by autonomous regulatory mechanisms, the stromal niche environment also provides essential cues to direct directing differentiation decisions and can lead to aberrant proliferation and/or differentiation. Elegant tissue recombination experiments, pioneered by Gerald Cunha and colleagues, provided evidence that quiescent epithelial tissues containing adult stem cells were capable of altered differentiation in response to inductive and instructive mesenchyme. In more recent times, it has been demonstrated that embryonic mesenchyme is sufficiently powerful to direct the differentiation of embryonic stem cells into mature prostate or bladder. In addition, prostatic tumor stroma provides another unique niche or microenvironment for stem cell differentiation that is distinct to normal stroma. This review highlights the importance of the appropriate selection of the stromal cell niche for tissue regeneration and implies plasticity of adult stem cells that is dictated by the tissue microenvironment.
基于成年干细胞的异常调控会导致包括癌症在内的前列腺疾病这一观点，前列腺干细胞的分离和特性研究在过去几年中受到了广泛关注。干细胞调控中干扰的本质在很大程度上仍然未知。尽管成年干细胞可以由自主调节机制控制，但基质微环境也提供了指导分化决定的重要线索，并可能导致异常增殖和/或分化。杰拉尔德·库尼亚及其同事开创的精巧组织重组实验提供了证据，表明含有成年干细胞的静止上皮组织能够响应诱导性和指导性间充质而改变分化。最近，已经证明胚胎间充质有足够的能力将胚胎干细胞分化为成熟的前列腺或膀胱。此外，前列腺肿瘤基质为干细胞分化提供了另一个独特的微环境，这与正常基质不同。这篇综述强调了为组织再生适当选择基质细胞微环境的重要性，并暗示成年干细胞的可塑性是由组织微环境决定的。
