Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre, School of Biology, University of Nottingham, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK.
J Pathol. 2013 Jan;229(1):4-11. doi: 10.1002/path.4098. Epub 2012 Nov 8.
Germ cell tumours found in the brain (intracranial GCTs) are a very unusual class of tumour for two reasons. First, they include a very diverse range of histological subtypes classified together due to their proposed common cell of origin. Second, this proposed cell of origin, the germ cell progenitor, would not normally be found in the tissue where these tumours arise. This is in contrast to all other primary brain tumours, in which the cell of origin is believed to be a brain cell. Indeed, no other class of primary cancer arises from a cell from a distant organ. This theory for the origins of intracranial GCTs has been in place for many decades, but recent data arising from studies of induced pluripotency for regenerative medicine raise serious questions about this dogma. Here we review the cellular origins of intracranial GCTs in the light of these new data and reanalyse the existing data on the biology of this unusual class of tumours. Together, these considerations lead us to conclude that the evidence now falls in favour of a model in which these tumours arise from the transformation of endogenous brain cells. This theory should inform future studies of the aetiology of these tumours and so lead the way to animal models in which to study their development and potential biological therapeutics.
脑内生殖细胞肿瘤（intracranial GCTs）有两个独特的特点，使其成为一类非常罕见的肿瘤。首先，它们包含非常多样化的组织学亚型，这些亚型由于其共同的起源细胞而被归为一类。其次，这个起源细胞，生殖细胞祖细胞，通常不会在这些肿瘤起源的组织中被发现。这与所有其他原发性脑肿瘤形成鲜明对比，后者的起源细胞被认为是脑细胞。事实上，没有其他类型的原发性癌症起源于来自远处器官的细胞。几十年来，这种关于颅内 GCTs 起源的理论一直存在，但最近再生医学中诱导多能性研究的数据提出了对这一教条的严重质疑。在此，我们根据这些新数据重新审视颅内 GCTs 的细胞起源，并重新分析该异常肿瘤类别的生物学现有数据。综上所述，这些考虑使我们得出结论，现有证据倾向于这些肿瘤起源于内源性脑细胞转化的模型。该理论应指导这些肿瘤病因学的未来研究，并为研究其发展和潜在生物学治疗方法的动物模型铺平道路。
