Department of Oncology of the Zhengzhou Central Hospital Affiliated to Zhengzhou University, Zheng Zhou 450007, Henan Province, China.
Cancer Treat Rev. 2013 May;39(3):290-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ctrv.2012.10.004. Epub 2012 Dec 5.
Nowadays, cancer has been a frequent disease, and the first or second most common cause of death worldwide. Despite a better understanding of the biology of cancer cells, the therapy of most cancers has not significantly changed for the past four decades. It is because conventional chemotherapies and/or radiation therapies are usually designed to eradicate highly proliferative cells. Mounting evidence has implicated that cancer is a disease of stem cells. Cancer stem cells (CSC) are often relatively quiescent, and therefore may not be affected by therapies targeting rapidly dividing cells. Like normal stem cells (NSC) residing in a "stem cell niche" that maintains them in a stem-like state, CSC also require a special microenvironment to control their self-renewal and undifferentiated state. The "CSC niche" is likely to be the most crucial target in the treatment of cancer. In this article, we summarize the current knowledge regarding CSC and their niche microenvironments. Understanding of CSC's origin, molecular profile, and interaction with their microenvironments, this could be a paradigm shift in the treatment of cancer, away from targeting the blast cells and towards the targeting of the CSC, thus improving therapeutic outcome.
如今，癌症已成为一种常见疾病，是全球第一或第二大常见死因。尽管人们对癌细胞的生物学有了更好的理解，但在过去的四十年中，大多数癌症的治疗并没有显著改变。这是因为传统的化疗和/或放疗通常旨在消灭高增殖性细胞。越来越多的证据表明，癌症是一种干细胞疾病。癌症干细胞（CSC）通常相对静止，因此可能不会受到针对快速分裂细胞的治疗的影响。与居住在维持其干细胞样状态的“干细胞龛”中的正常干细胞（NSC）一样，CSC 还需要特殊的微环境来控制其自我更新和未分化状态。“CSC 龛”可能是癌症治疗中最关键的靶点。本文总结了目前关于 CSC 及其龛微环境的知识。了解 CSC 的起源、分子特征以及与微环境的相互作用，这可能是癌症治疗的范式转变，从针对白血病细胞转向针对 CSC，从而提高治疗效果。
