Werneck Miriam Bianchi de Frontin
Brazilian National Institute of Cancer (INCA), Oswaldo Cruz Institute, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Front Biosci (Schol Ed). 2012 Jun 1;4(4):1518-38. doi: 10.2741/s349.
It has been recently shown that within heterogeneous tumor masses a small population of less differentiated transformed cells has the ability to self-renew and regenerate the bulk of the tumor. Their similarities with normal stem cells in terms of gene expression patterns, proliferative capacity and surface markers rendered them the name of cancer stem-like cells (CSC), and these are thought to be the tumor initiating cells (TIC). Their limited susceptibility to classical anti-tumor therapy help explain the high incidence of cancer-treatment relapses observed in selected malignancies. Much effort is being directed towards the understanding of factors that maintain CSC survival and their self-renewal capacity, with the goal that these same signaling pathways can be harnessed for treatments that aim at inducing CSC differentiation. This review will discuss the CSC theory, its implications, potential signaling pathways responsible for maintaining their undifferentiated and pluripotent states, and new venues being explored to target these cells in modern cancer therapy.
最近研究表明，在异质性肿瘤块中，一小部分低分化的转化细胞具有自我更新和再生大部分肿瘤的能力。它们在基因表达模式、增殖能力和表面标志物方面与正常干细胞相似，因此被命名为癌症干细胞样细胞（CSC），人们认为这些细胞就是肿瘤起始细胞（TIC）。它们对传统抗肿瘤治疗的敏感性有限，这有助于解释在某些恶性肿瘤中观察到的癌症治疗复发的高发生率。目前人们正致力于了解维持CSC存活及其自我更新能力的因素，目标是利用这些相同的信号通路进行旨在诱导CSC分化的治疗。本综述将讨论CSC理论、其意义、负责维持其未分化和多能状态的潜在信号通路，以及在现代癌症治疗中针对这些细胞探索的新途径。
