Oskarsson Thordur, Batlle Eduard, Massagué Joan
Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM gGmbH), 69120 Heidelberg, Germany; Division of Stem Cells and Cancer, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), 69120 Heidelberg, Germany; German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), 08028 Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
Cell Stem Cell. 2014 Mar 6;14(3):306-21. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2014.02.002.
Metastasis is powered by disseminated cancer cells that re-create a full-fledged tumor in unwelcoming tissues, away from the primary site. How cancer cells moving from a tumor into the circulation manage to infiltrate distant organs and initiate metastatic growth is of interest to cancer biologists and clinical oncologists alike. Recent findings have started to define the sources, phenotypic properties, hosting niches, and signaling pathways that support the survival, self-renewal, dormancy, and reactivation of cancer cells that initiate metastasis: metastatic stem cells. By dissecting the biology of this process, vulnerabilities are being exposed that could be exploited to prevent metastasis.
转移是由播散的癌细胞驱动的,这些癌细胞会在远离原发部位的不友好组织中重新形成一个成熟的肿瘤。癌细胞如何从肿瘤进入循环系统,进而渗透到远处器官并启动转移生长,这是癌症生物学家和临床肿瘤学家都感兴趣的问题。最近的研究结果已开始明确支持启动转移的癌细胞(即转移性干细胞)的存活、自我更新、休眠和重新激活的来源、表型特性、宿主微环境及信号通路。通过剖析这一过程的生物学特性,人们发现了一些可以用来预防转移的薄弱环节。