Cancer Stem Cells May Drive Tumor Growth

Featured Article Academic Journal Main Category: Cancer / Oncology Also Included In: Stem Cell Research;Biology / Biochemistry Article Date: 02 Aug 2012 - 2:00 PDT

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Papers on all three studies appeared online on Wednesday, two in Nature and one in Science.

In all three studies, the teams used genetic cell-marking techniques to track cell lineage and show that a restricted cell population appears to be the source of new tumor cells, in much the same way as stem cells are the "master builders" of new healthy cells.

GBM is a type of brain cancer that is currently considered incurable. It is a fast-growing tumor with a median survival of about 15 months. Although initially it responds to chemotherapy, the cancer nearly always comes back.

In their study, Parada and colleagues used genetically engineered mice bred to develop GBM and found that the resting tumor cells act more like stem cells.

They used a genetic marker that labels healthy adult neural stem cells, but not their more specialized descendants, to see if it would do the same for cancer stem cells in GBM. When they did so, they found all the tumors contained at least a few labelled cells, which they presumed to be stem cells.

The tumors also contained unlabelled cells, which could be killed with standard chemotherapy, but then the tumors came back soon afterwards. When they tested them again, they found the tumors contained unlabelled cells that came from labelled predecessors.

When they applied chemotherapy with a technique that suppressed the labelled cells, the researchers found the tumors shrank back to what Parada described to Nature NEWS as "residual vestiges" that bore no resemblance to GBM.

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Cancer Stem Cells May Drive Tumor Growth