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Stem cells and cancer: an intimate relationship
Author(s) -
Burkert J,
Wright NA,
Alison MR
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the journal of pathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.964
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1096-9896
pISSN - 0022-3417
DOI - 10.1002/path.2016
Subject(s) - stem cell , cancer stem cell , haematopoiesis , biology , progenitor cell , cancer , cancer research , cancer cell , stem cell theory of aging , population , immunology , disease , microbiology and biotechnology , pathology , medicine , genetics , stem cell factor , environmental health
Tumour‐wide ‘omics’ approaches have long held sway as the approach to identifying useful therapeutic targets. This view is changing with the realization that many, if not all, cancers contain a minority population of self‐renewing stem cells, the cancer stem cells, which are entirely responsible for sustaining the tumour as well as giving rise to proliferating but progressively differentiating cells that are responsible for much of the cellular heterogeneity that is so familiar to histopathologists. Moreover, although many tumours probably have their origins in normal stem cells, persuasive evidence from the haematopoietic system suggests that genetic alterations in more committed progenitor cells can reactivate the self‐renewal machinery, resulting in a further source of cancer stem cells. Thus, the bulk of the tumour is not the problem, and so the identification of cancer stem cells and the factors that regulate their behaviour are likely to have an enormous bearing on the way that we treat neoplastic disease in the future. Copyright © 2006 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.