Ultrastructural comparison of differentiation of stem cells of murine adenocarcinomas of colon and breast with their normal counterparts.

Two rats with chemically induced transplantable adenocarcinomas of the colon were given pulses of [3H]thymidine, and autoradiography with electron microscopes was used to compare the degrees of differentiation of the stem cells of the tumor and colon. The best differentiated portions of the tumor had acini composed of vacuolated, mucous, and argentaffin cells in various stages of differentiation. Vacuolated and mucous cells incorporated [3H]thymidine and corresponded in degree of differentiation to that of their labeled normal counterparts in the normal colon. An exceedingly undifferentiated labeled cell, hitherto undescribed, was identified in the tumor and crypts of the colon; this may be an undifferentiated colon stem cell that differentiates into vacuolated and mucous stem cells and/or into argentaffin cells. Normal stem cells of the breast and malignant stem cells of spontaneous adenocarcinomas of the breast of C3H mice had comparable degrees of differentiation. Since normal stem cells in these tissues were as undifferentiated as the least differentiated stem cells of the tumors, there is now no need to postulate dedifferentiation as a mechanism to explain the undifferentiated appearance of tumors.