Zamler Daniel B, Hu Jian
School of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Neurosciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Department of Cancer Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas.
Cancer Res. 2023 Mar 15;83(6):807-808. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-23-0024.
Glioblastoma is the most deadly and common primary tumor of the central nervous system. Heterogeneity in the disease causes complications from diagnosis to treatment. It has long been suggested that a stem cell and/or progenitor population may be the origin of this disease and provide the underlying heterogeneity. However, which population precisely is the cell of origin, or whether there is only one cell of origin, has remained elusive. Previous studies have shown that, with proper combinations of oncogene expression and tumor suppressor loss, three cell types have the potential to transform into glioma-neural stem cells (NSC), oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC), and astrocytes. In a newly published article in Cancer Research, Verma and colleagues make a convincing argument through elegant animal work that an intermediate progenitor cell population, primitive OPCs, has higher tumorigenic potential than the NSCs or OPCs. This study helps rectify the controversy around which cell populations are the most sensitive to transformation in gliomagenesis. See related article by Verma et al., p. 890.
胶质母细胞瘤是中枢神经系统最致命且最常见的原发性肿瘤。该疾病的异质性导致从诊断到治疗的一系列并发症。长期以来，人们一直认为干细胞和/或祖细胞群体可能是这种疾病的起源，并导致了潜在的异质性。然而，究竟哪种群体是起源细胞，或者是否只有一种起源细胞，仍然难以捉摸。先前的研究表明，通过癌基因表达和肿瘤抑制因子缺失的适当组合，三种细胞类型有可能转化为胶质瘤神经干细胞（NSC）、少突胶质细胞前体细胞（OPC）和星形胶质细胞。在《癌症研究》新发表的一篇文章中， Verma及其同事通过出色的动物实验令人信服地证明，一种中间祖细胞群体，即原始OPC，比NSC或OPC具有更高的致瘤潜力。这项研究有助于纠正关于胶质瘤发生过程中哪些细胞群体对转化最敏感的争议。见Verma等人的相关文章，第890页。
