Department of Signal Transduction, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, 3-1 Yamada-ka, Suita, 565-0871, Japan.
Int J Hematol. 2012 Feb;95(2):138-42. doi: 10.1007/s12185-012-1011-3. Epub 2012 Feb 4.
Blood vessels clearly act as conduits for blood flow, but recently the concept that they are also involved in organ maintenance, especially by providing a niche for organ-specific stem cells, has begun to emerge. Moreover, several lines of evidence suggest that hematopoietic stem cells can differentiate directly into cells composing blood vessels. Recently, cancer stem cells (CSCs) have also been assigned these roles in the cancer microenvironment. Although anti-angiogenic drugs have been developed and are utilized in the clinic for their anti-tumor activity, their suppressive effects on tumor growth have been disappointing. This may be caused by transferring drug resistance from CSCs to endothelial cells. It has been suggested that CSCs localize in the peri-vascular niche. Therefore, it is extremely important to know how the vascular niche maintains CSCs, as such knowledge may enable us to develop promising new approaches to cancer treatment.
血管显然是血液流动的通道，但最近出现了一种新的观点，认为血管还参与器官的维持，特别是为特定于器官的干细胞提供了一个小生境。此外，有几条证据表明造血干细胞可以直接分化为组成血管的细胞。最近，癌症干细胞 (CSC) 在癌症微环境中也被赋予了这些功能。尽管已经开发出抗血管生成药物并在临床上用于其抗肿瘤活性，但它们对肿瘤生长的抑制作用令人失望。这可能是由于将耐药性从 CSC 转移到内皮细胞引起的。有人提出 CSC 定位于血管周围的小生境中。因此，了解血管小生境如何维持 CSC 极为重要，因为这种知识可能使我们能够开发出有前途的癌症治疗新方法。
