Origins and clinical implications of the tumor stem cell hypothesis / 肿瘤研究与临床

ABSTRACT

With the advent of the cancer stem cell hypothesis,the field of cancer research has experienced a revolution in how we think of and approach cancer. The discovery of "tumor-initiating cell" has offered an explanation for several long-standing conundrums on why tumors behave the way they do to treatment. Despite the great amount of research that has been done in order to understand the molecular aspects of tumors,the prognosis of tumors remains dismal. The slow progress in extending the survival of patients with malignant tumors is very likely due to poor understanding of the cell of origin in these tumors.This review article discusses the progress in our understanding of tumor-initiating cell as the cell of origin in cancers. We review the different proposed mechanisms of how tumor-initiating cell may originate,the molecular mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression, and finally the clinical implications of this research.