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Colonic and colorectal cancer stem cells: progress in the search for putative biomarkers
Author(s) -
Willis Naomi D.,
Przyborski Stefan A.,
Hutchison Christopher J.,
Wilson Robert G.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of anatomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.932
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1469-7580
pISSN - 0021-8782
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.00917.x
Subject(s) - stem cell , colorectal cancer , cancer stem cell , carcinogenesis , cancer research , biology , biomarker , cell , bioinformatics , cancer , pathology , medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics
The maintenance of healthy colonic crypts is dependent on the integrity of the adult epithelial stem cells located within them. Perturbations in stem cell dynamics are generally believed to represent the first step towards colorectal tumorigenesis. Experimental manipulation of intestinal stem cells has greatly increased our understanding of them, but further progress has been slowed due to the absence of a reliable stem cell biomarker. In this review we discuss the candidate colonic stem cell biomarkers which have been proposed. Furthermore, we investigate the putative biomarkers for so‐called colorectal cancer stem cells, a highly aggressive subpopulation of cells considered to drive tumour development.