مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The biology of stem cells and the role of stem cells in hematological malignancies

Abstract :

Cancer as an important group of disease is characterized by the abnormal differentiation and proliferation of the cells without normal control. Cancer is generally originated from only a cell named cancer stem cell. Because of the selfrenewal capacity of cancer stem cells, over proliferation of tumor cells occurs. Despite of the importance of cancer stem cells in tumorogenesis, the existence in a tumor tissue is very few. The knowledge of cancer stem cell biology is most advanced in leukemias. Leukemia is a group of malignant diseases of the blood system, originated from hematopoietic cancer stem cells and characterized by uncontrolled overproduction of leukocytes. The molecular findings observed in cancer stem cells in various types of leukemias and normal hemaopoietic stem cells differentiation represented the difference between normal and pathologic cell differentiation. Cell surface markers defined in different maturation steps in leukemias had been used for the identification of the pure stem cells in the same stage. These findings had been used for the understanding the transformation and differentiation of leukemia stem cells. Also, xenotransplantation studies give us the mouse models which have different type of leukemia by using the pure leukemia stem cells. The new molecular markers observed in these further mouse experiments can give the opportunity to be used in the diagnosis and prognosis of leukemia patients. Understanding the biology of leukemia stem cells may help us in the development of new targeted chemotherapy strategies in cancer cases. So, the further experiments on leukemia stem cells seems having a chance for mankind to overcome the leukemia problem in near future.