Department of Biophysics and Cell Biology, Medical and Health Science Center, University of Debrecen, Hungary.
Cytometry A. 2013 Jan;83(1):62-71. doi: 10.1002/cyto.a.22206. Epub 2012 Sep 20.
Cancer stem cell (CSC) biology is a rapidly developing field within cancer research. CSCs are postulated to be a unique cell population exclusively capable of infinite self renewal, multilineage differentiation and with ability to evade conventional cytotoxic cancer therapy. These traits distinguish CSCs from their more differentiated counterparts, which possess only limited or no potential for self renewal and tumor initiation. Therefore, CSCs would be the driving motor of malignant growth and therapy resistance. Accordingly, successful cancer treatment would need to eliminate this highly potent group of cells, since even small residual numbers would suffice to recapitulate the disease after therapy. Putative CSCs has been identified in a broad range of human malignancies and several cell surface markers have been associated with their stem cell phenotype. Despite all efforts, a pure CSC population has not been isolated and often in vitro clonogenic and in vivo tumorigenic potential is found in several cell populations with occasionally contradictory surface marker signatures. Here, we give a brief overview of recent advances in CSC theory, including the signaling pathways in CSCs that also appear crucial for stem cells homeostasis in normal tissues. We discuss evidence for the interaction of CSCs with the stromal tumor environment. Finally, we review the emerging potentially effective CSC-targeted treatment strategies and their future role in therapy.
癌症干细胞 (CSC) 生物学是癌症研究中一个迅速发展的领域。CSC 被假设为一种独特的细胞群体，专门具有无限自我更新、多谱系分化和逃避常规细胞毒性癌症治疗的能力。这些特征将 CSC 与其分化程度较低的对应物区分开来，后者仅具有有限的或没有自我更新和肿瘤起始的潜力。因此，CSC 是恶性生长和治疗抵抗的驱动力。相应地，成功的癌症治疗需要消除这种高潜能的细胞群体，因为即使残留少量细胞也足以在治疗后重现疾病。在广泛的人类恶性肿瘤中已经鉴定出了假定的 CSC，并且已经鉴定出了几种细胞表面标记物与它们的干细胞表型相关。尽管做出了所有努力，但尚未分离出纯 CSC 群体，并且经常在体外克隆形成和体内肿瘤发生潜能存在于具有偶尔相互矛盾的表面标记物特征的几个细胞群体中。在这里，我们简要概述了 CSC 理论的最新进展，包括 CSC 中的信号通路，这些通路似乎对正常组织中的干细胞稳态也很重要。我们讨论了 CSC 与肿瘤基质环境相互作用的证据。最后，我们回顾了新兴的潜在有效的 CSC 靶向治疗策略及其在治疗中的未来作用。
