Wang Xinyue, Liang Jianhao, Sun Haitao
Clinical Biobank Center, Microbiome Medicine Center, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Neurosurgery Center, The National Key Clinical Specialty, The Engineering Technology Research Center of Education Ministry of China on Diagnosis and Treatment of Cerebrovascular Disease, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory on Brain Function Repair and Regeneration, The Neurosurgery Institute of Guangdong Province, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Oncol. 2022 Jun 29;12:921975. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.921975. eCollection 2022.
Gliomas are known as an incurable brain tumor for the poor prognosis and robust recurrence. In recent years, a cellular subpopulation with tumor microtubes (TMs) was identified in brain tumors, which may provide a new angle to explain the invasion, resistance, recurrence, and heterogeneity of gliomas. Recently, it was demonstrated that the cell subpopulation also expresses neural stem cell markers and shares a lot of features with both immature neurons and cancer stem cells and may be seen as an improperly reactivated neural cell network with a stemness feature at later time points of life. TMs may also provide a new angle to understand the resistance and recurrence mechanisms of glioma stem cells. In this review, we innovatively focus on the common features between TMs and sprouting axons in morphology, formation, and function. Additionally, we summarized the recent progress in the resistance and recurrence mechanisms of gliomas with TMs and explained the incurability and heterogeneity in gliomas with TMs. Moreover, we discussed the recently discovered overlap between cancer stem cells and TM-positive glioma cells, which may contribute to the understanding of resistant glioma cell subpopulation and the exploration of the new potential therapeutic target for gliomas.
胶质瘤因预后差和复发率高而被认为是一种无法治愈的脑肿瘤。近年来，在脑肿瘤中发现了一个具有肿瘤微管（TMs）的细胞亚群，这可能为解释胶质瘤的侵袭、耐药、复发和异质性提供一个新的视角。最近有研究表明，该细胞亚群还表达神经干细胞标志物，与未成熟神经元和癌症干细胞有许多共同特征，在生命后期可能被视为具有干性特征的异常重新激活的神经细胞网络。肿瘤微管也可能为理解胶质瘤干细胞的耐药和复发机制提供一个新的视角。在这篇综述中，我们创新性地聚焦于肿瘤微管与发芽轴突在形态、形成和功能方面的共同特征。此外，我们总结了肿瘤微管在胶质瘤耐药和复发机制方面的最新进展，并解释了具有肿瘤微管的胶质瘤的不可治愈性和异质性。此外，我们还讨论了最近发现的癌症干细胞与肿瘤微管阳性胶质瘤细胞之间的重叠，这可能有助于理解耐药胶质瘤细胞亚群，并探索胶质瘤新的潜在治疗靶点。
