cancer stem cells Flashcards
DEFINE: intra-tumour heterogeneity
cells within a tumour exhibiting differences
DEFINE: inter-tumour heterogeneity
differences between tumours
DEFINE: equipotent
have equal capacity to differentiate
Cancer stem cell model
All tumour cells have different proliferation rates
Proliferating tumour cells are killed by drugs
There is a reservoir of slow-growing, self-renewing, drug resistant cancer stem cells that drive tumour formation
Stochastic model
Proportion of tumour cells proliferate to fuel tumour growth while other tumour cells differentiate
All tumour cells are equally susceptible to treatment
Wrong model
What are the mechanisms by which cancer stem cells arise and describe them. Are these 2 processes mutually exclusive?
- Reprogramming event
- One or more transformation events reprograms specialised cells (arising from normal stem cells) to cancer stem cells - Oncogenic transformation
- Transformation of normal stem cell to cancer stem cell
These two processes are not mutually exclusive - they can occur in the same tumour
DEFINE: in vitro potential
establishment of cell lines from a tumour that can self-renew in a petri dish and differentiate
DEFINE: in vivo potential
ability of stem cells to give rise to cancer following transplantation into animals
Which cell markers are haematopoietic stem cells positive and negative for?
Positive for cell marker = CD34
Negative for cell marker = CD38
Indatraline
drug selectively killing glioblastoma stem cell + causing growth arrest
what are the limitations of in vitro modelling of tumourigenesis
- lack of insight into mechanisms
- does not capture the transition of a normal to tumourigenic phenotype in a human context
which transcription factor does neuroblastomas express highly?
N-myc
