Cancer Center Amsterdam, Department of Medical Biology at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
J Histochem Cytochem. 2018 May;66(5):349-358. doi: 10.1369/0022155417752676. Epub 2018 Jan 12.
Survival of primary brain tumor (glioblastoma) patients is seriously hampered by glioma stem cells (GSCs) that are distinct therapy-resistant self-replicating pluripotent cancer cells. GSCs reside in GSC niches, which are specific protective microenvironments in glioblastoma tumors. We have recently found that GSC niches are hypoxic periarteriolar, whereas in most studies, GSC niches are identified as hypoxic perivascular. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate the literature on perivascular GSC niches to establish whether these are periarteriolar, pericapillary, perivenular, and/or perilymphatic. We found six publications showing images of human glioblastoma tissue containing perivascular GSC niches without any specification of the vessel type. However, it is frequently assumed that these vessels are capillaries which are exchange vessels, whereas arterioles and venules are transport vessels. Closer inspection of the figures of these publications showed vessels that were not capillaries. Whether these vessels were arterioles or venules was difficult to determine in one case, but in the other cases, these were clearly arterioles and their perivascular niches were similar to the periarteriolar niches we have found. Therefore, we conclude that in human glioblastoma tumors, GSC niches are hypoxic periarteriolar and are structurally and functionally look-alikes of hematopoietic stem cell niches in the bone marrow.
原发性脑肿瘤（胶质母细胞瘤）患者的存活率受到胶质母细胞瘤干细胞（GSCs）的严重阻碍，GSCs 是具有独特耐药性的自我复制多能癌细胞。GSCs 存在于 GSC 龛位中，这是胶质母细胞瘤肿瘤中特定的保护性微环境。我们最近发现 GSC 龛位呈缺氧性动脉周，而在大多数研究中，GSC 龛位被确定为缺氧性血管周。本综述的目的是批判性地评估关于血管周 GSC 龛位的文献，以确定这些龛位是动脉周、血管周、血管周还是淋巴管周。我们发现了六篇发表的关于含有血管周 GSC 龛位的人类胶质母细胞瘤组织的图像的文章，但没有任何关于血管类型的说明。然而，人们通常认为这些血管是毛细血管，毛细血管是交换血管，而小动脉和小静脉是运输血管。仔细检查这些出版物的图片显示，这些血管不是毛细血管。在一种情况下，这些血管是小动脉还是小静脉很难确定，但在其他情况下，这些血管显然是小动脉，它们的血管周龛位与我们发现的动脉周龛位相似。因此，我们得出结论，在人类胶质母细胞瘤肿瘤中，GSC 龛位是缺氧性动脉周的，在结构和功能上与骨髓中的造血干细胞龛位相似。
