Stem-cell self-renewal pathways
Identification of stem-cell self-renewal pathways may be important for future cancer prevention and therapy. An emerging concept is that in leukaemia as well as in neural and epithelial cancers, including breast cancer, only a minority of cells, ie the 'cancer stem cells', have the capacity to initiate tumours. Presumably, the other tumour cells are committed to differentiation pathways and senescence. Although some cell-specific markers and signal-transduction pathways are similar in normal and cancer stem cells, the tight regulation of self-renewal that is operative in the normal stem cell may well be disrupted in cancer. Thus, characterising the cancer stem cell and understanding the molecular basis for dysregulated self-renewal is crucial for identification of:
- Targets for effective therapeutic intervention
- Those cells in micrometastases which can initiate tumours