Hatano Yuichiro, Fukuda Shinya, Hisamatsu Kenji, Hirata Akihiro, Hara Akira, Tomita Hiroyuki
Department of Tumor Pathology, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu 501-1194, Japan.
Division of Animal Experiment, Life Science Research Center, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu 501-1194, Japan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2017 Jul 5;18(7):1446. doi: 10.3390/ijms18071446.
Colon cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, despite recent advances in clinical oncology. Accumulating evidence sheds light on the existence of cancer stem cells and their role in conferring therapeutic resistance. Cancer stem cells are a minor fraction of cancer cells, which enable tumor heterogeneity and initiate tumor formation. In addition, these cells are resistant to various cytotoxic factors. Therefore, elimination of cancer stem cells is difficult but essential to cure the malignant foci completely. Herein, we review the recent evidence for intestinal stem cells and colon cancer stem cells, methods to detect the tumor-initiating cells, and clinical significance of cancer stem cell markers. We also describe the emerging problems of cancer stem cell theory, including bidirectional conversion and intertumoral heterogeneity of stem cell phenotype.
尽管临床肿瘤学最近取得了进展，但结肠癌仍是全球癌症相关死亡的主要原因之一。越来越多的证据揭示了癌症干细胞的存在及其在赋予治疗抗性方面的作用。癌症干细胞是癌细胞中的一小部分，它们导致肿瘤异质性并启动肿瘤形成。此外，这些细胞对各种细胞毒性因子具有抗性。因此，消除癌症干细胞很困难，但对于完全治愈恶性病灶至关重要。在此，我们综述了关于肠干细胞和结肠癌干细胞的最新证据、检测肿瘤起始细胞的方法以及癌症干细胞标志物的临床意义。我们还描述了癌症干细胞理论中出现的问题，包括干细胞表型的双向转化和肿瘤间异质性。
