胰腺癌干细胞的研究进展和展望

Pancreatic cancer stem cells: Advances and perspectives

自20世纪90年代以来,肿瘤干细胞学说得到了越来越多的研究支持,该学说认为肿瘤干细胞可以对称和不对称分裂的方式分别产生肿瘤干细胞和正常肿瘤细胞两种后代,从而参与肿瘤层次结构的维持和稳定,是肿瘤发生、化疗抗性以及复发转移的根本原因.然而近几十年来,在解释和克服肿瘤异质性方面,无论是在体内还是体外实验中,很多试图在肿瘤干细胞理论与肿瘤恶性生物学行为之间形成因果关系的努力却都取得了一些成果.在本文中,我们利用该领域现有的证据来介绍近年来肿瘤干细胞在胰腺癌领域内取得的成果和所面临的挑战以及将来可能的进展方向.

The evolution of certain types of malignancies including pancreatic carcinoma, as verified in mountains of literature published since the 1970 s, is due in great measure to cancer stem cells located within the hierarchically organized tumor structure. However, by now, the results of numerous attempts to relate cancer stem cell theory to malignant biological behavior of cancers have appeared rather discouraging in terms of explaining and overcoming tumorheterogeneity in both in vitro and in vivo conditions. In seeking to describe the cancer stem cells in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, in the current editorial, we rely primarily on the existing evidence to gain a comprehensive perspective toward this area.