Intra-tumor heterogeneity from a cancer stem cell perspective

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• 作者：Pramudita R. Prasetyanti ; Jan Paul Medema
• 关键词：Tumor heterogeneity ; Cancer stem cell ; Stemness ; Tumor microenvironment
• 刊名：Molecular Cancer
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：December 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：16
• 期：1
• 全文大小：851KB
• 刊物主题：Cancer Research; Oncology;
• 出版者：BioMed Central
• ISSN：1476-4598
• 卷排序：16

文摘

Tumor heterogeneity represents an ongoing challenge in the field of cancer therapy. Heterogeneity is evident between cancers from different patients (inter-tumor heterogeneity) and within a single tumor (intra-tumor heterogeneity). The latter includes phenotypic diversity such as cell surface markers, (epi)genetic abnormality, growth rate, apoptosis and other hallmarks of cancer that eventually drive disease progression and treatment failure. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been put forward to be one of the determining factors that contribute to intra-tumor heterogeneity. However, recent findings have shown that the stem-like state in a given tumor cell is a plastic quality. A corollary to this view is that stemness traits can be acquired via (epi)genetic modification and/or interaction with the tumor microenvironment (TME). Here we discuss factors contributing to this CSC heterogeneity and the potential implications for cancer therapy.