DA Cruz Paula Arnaud, Lopes Carlos
Pathology and Molecular Immunology Department, Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Porto, Portugal
Department of Pathology, Portuguese Oncology Institute, Porto, Portugal.
Anticancer Res. 2017 May;37(5):2173-2183. doi: 10.21873/anticanres.11552.
The attempts to identify, isolate and characterize cancer stem cell populations are mostly dependent on cell-surface markers. In breast cancer, several putative breast cancer stem cell (BCSC) markers have already been reported, but the agreement on their phenotypic characterization is still absent. In fact, it became unfeasible to obtain a universal combination of markers that could specifically identify BCSCs in all cases of breast cancer. Breast cancer heterogeneity as reflected by various histological subtypes, with variable clinical presentations and diverse molecular signatures also contributes to major drawbacks. Indeed, intra-tumor heterogeneity leads to a single tumor to contain, at any given time, tumor cell populations displaying different molecular profiles and biological properties. As a consequence, several BCSC phenotypes were described, with some being associated with aggressive forms of breast cancer. Although the validation of the CSC model remains an ongoing task, it is important to define which BCSC phenotypes have high tumorigenic potential and ability to resist therapeutic agents. For this reason, a concise review is presented here regarding the implications of the most studied BCSC markers and phenotypes in breast cancer progression and treatment.
识别、分离和鉴定癌症干细胞群体的尝试大多依赖于细胞表面标志物。在乳腺癌中，已经报道了几种假定的乳腺癌干细胞（BCSC）标志物，但对其表型特征的共识仍然缺乏。事实上，要获得一种能在所有乳腺癌病例中特异性识别BCSC的通用标志物组合已变得不可行。各种组织学亚型所反映的乳腺癌异质性，以及不同的临床表现和多样的分子特征，也是导致主要缺陷的原因。的确，肿瘤内异质性导致单个肿瘤在任何给定时间都包含显示不同分子谱和生物学特性的肿瘤细胞群体。因此，描述了几种BCSC表型，其中一些与侵袭性乳腺癌形式相关。尽管癌症干细胞模型的验证仍是一项持续进行的任务，但确定哪些BCSC表型具有高致瘤潜力和抵抗治疗药物的能力很重要。出于这个原因，本文对研究最多的BCSC标志物和表型在乳腺癌进展和治疗中的影响进行简要综述。
