Wilson Brian J, Schatton Tobias, Frank Markus H, Frank Natasha Y
Transplantation Research Center, Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Skin Disease Research Center, Department of Dermatology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Enders 814, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Curr Colorectal Cancer Rep. 2011 Jun;7(2):128-135. doi: 10.1007/s11888-011-0093-2.
The hypothesis that cancer is driven by a subpopulation of tumor-initiating or cancer stem cells (CSC), defined by their selective ability for extensive self-renewal and capacity to give rise to nontumorigenic cancer cell progeny through differentiation, has been validated experimentally in diverse human malignancies. Translational relevance of the CSC hypothesis is underlined by emerging novel strategies designed to target all subpopulations within a given tumor in order to effect cancer eradication and improve patient outcomes. Colorectal cancer stem cells (CRSCs) have been identified and successfully isolated by several research groups based on distinct cell-surface marker characteristics. Identification of CRSC populations has led to a wave of discoveries describing novel self-renewal and drug resistance mechanisms in colorectal cancer that represent novel future therapeutic targets. In this review, we will discuss emerging CRSC-specific pathways and the therapeutic promise of targeting this cancer population in colorectal cancer patients.
癌症由肿瘤起始细胞或癌症干细胞（CSC）亚群驱动的假说已在多种人类恶性肿瘤中得到实验验证。该假说认为，这些细胞具有广泛自我更新的选择性能力，并能够通过分化产生非致瘤性癌细胞后代。旨在靶向给定肿瘤内所有亚群以实现癌症根除和改善患者预后的新策略凸显了CSC假说的转化相关性。多个研究小组已基于不同的细胞表面标志物特征鉴定并成功分离出结直肠癌干细胞（CRSC）。CRSC群体的鉴定引发了一系列发现，这些发现描述了结直肠癌中新型的自我更新和耐药机制，它们代表了未来新的治疗靶点。在本综述中，我们将讨论新兴的CRSC特异性途径以及针对结直肠癌患者中这一癌症群体进行靶向治疗的前景。
