Chen Xiewan, Liao Rongxia, Li Dezhi, Sun Jianguo
Medical English Department, College of Basic Medicine, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Cancer Institute of PLA, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Oncotarget. 2017 Mar 7;8(10):17301-17312. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.14230.
Local and distant recurrence of malignant tumors following radio- and/or chemotherapy correlates with poor prognosis of patients. Among the reasons for cancer recurrence, preexisting cancer stem cells (CSCs) are considered the most likely cause due to their properties of self-renewal, pluripotency, plasticity and tumorigenicity. It has been demonstrated that preexisting cancer stem cells derive from normal stem cells and differentiated somatic cells that undergo transformation and dedifferentiation respectively under certain conditions. However, recent studies have revealed that cancer stem cells can also be induced from non-stem cancer cells by radiochemotherapy, constituting the subpopulation of induced cancer stem cells (iCSCs). These findings suggest that radiochemotherapy has the side effect of directly transforming non-stem cancer cells into induced cancer stem cells, possibly contributing to tumor recurrence and metastasis. Therefore, drugs targeting cancer stem cells or preventing dedifferentiation of non-stem cancer cells can be combined with radiochemotherapy to improve its antitumor efficacy. The current review is to investigate the mechanisms by which induced cancer stem cells are generated by radiochemotherapy and hence provide new strategies for cancer treatment.
恶性肿瘤在放疗和/或化疗后出现局部和远处复发与患者的不良预后相关。在癌症复发的原因中，预先存在的癌症干细胞（CSCs）被认为是最可能的原因，因为它们具有自我更新、多能性、可塑性和致瘤性。已经证明，预先存在的癌症干细胞分别来源于正常干细胞和分化的体细胞，它们在某些条件下分别经历转化和去分化。然而，最近的研究表明，癌症干细胞也可以通过放化疗从非干细胞癌细胞诱导产生，构成诱导性癌症干细胞（iCSCs）亚群。这些发现表明，放化疗具有将非干细胞癌细胞直接转化为诱导性癌症干细胞的副作用，这可能导致肿瘤复发和转移。因此，靶向癌症干细胞或防止非干细胞癌细胞去分化的药物可以与放化疗联合使用，以提高其抗肿瘤疗效。本综述旨在研究放化疗产生诱导性癌症干细胞的机制，从而为癌症治疗提供新策略。
