肿瘤干细胞的来源

肿瘤干细胞是肿瘤演化的单位,阐明肿瘤干细胞的来源对于肿瘤的防治有重要意义.综合近年相关文献和工作中的体会探讨肿瘤干细胞的可能来源、产生途径和机制.正常干细胞转化为肿瘤干细胞需要经历漫长的基因突变积累过程;诱导重编程形成多潜能干细胞是体细胞产生肿瘤干细胞的可能途径之一;肿瘤细胞返分化为肿瘤干细胞是肿瘤干细胞来源之一;上皮-间充质转换(EMT)是细胞可塑性的重要机制,在肿瘤细胞转移和肿瘤细胞干性形成中起重要作用,细胞融合诱导EMT可能是肿瘤干细胞形成的另一重要机制;此外,一些病毒感染可能与肿瘤干细胞形成相关.文章对肿瘤生物学性状复杂性的机制也进行了讨论.

Origin of tumor stem cells

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are units in cancer evolution.The elucidation the origin of CSCs has great significance on prevention and treatment of cancers.This paper discusses possible origins,genetic pathways and mechanisms of CSC on the basis of the literature and authors' research.Normal stem cells could be malignantly transformed to CSC through long term accumulation of gene mutations.Induction to pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming is a possible pathway for somatic cells to become CSCs.Dedifferentiation of cancer cells to CSCs is another pathway.Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT),which is an important mechanism for cellular plasticity,plays important roles in cancer metastasis and stemness of cancer cells.Cell-fusion inducing EMT could be a mechanism for the genesis of CSCs.Infection of some virus is also related to the genesis of CSCs.The complexity of cancer biology was also discussed.