The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
Mol Cell. 2014 Jun 5;54(5):716-27. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2014.05.015.
The existence of subpopulations of cells in cancers with increased tumor-initiating capacities and self-renewal potential, often termed "cancer stem cells," is a much discussed and key area of cancer biology. Such cellular heterogeneity is very important because of its impact on therapy and especially states of treatment resistance. A major question is whether there is plasticity for evolution of these cell states during tumorigenesis that can involve movement between cell populations in a reversible fashion. In this review, we discuss the possible role of epigenetic abnormalities as well as genetic alterations in such dynamics and in the creation of cellular heterogeneity in cancers of all types.
肿瘤中存在具有更高肿瘤起始能力和自我更新潜能的细胞亚群,通常被称为“肿瘤干细胞”,这是癌症生物学中一个备受讨论的关键领域。这种细胞异质性非常重要,因为它会影响治疗效果,特别是对治疗抵抗状态的影响。一个主要问题是,在肿瘤发生过程中,这些细胞状态是否存在可进化的可塑性,是否可以以可逆的方式在细胞群体之间移动。在这篇综述中,我们讨论了表观遗传异常以及遗传改变在这种动态变化和所有类型癌症中细胞异质性形成中的可能作用。