Study Links Genetic Footprint Of Embryonic Stem Cells To Cancer Cells
March 5th, 2008 by Mylo
A new study suggests that a genetic fingerprint associated with normal embryonic stem cells may be important for the development and function of cancer stem cells. The research in Cell Stem Cell demonstrates that embryonic stem cells and multiple types of human cancer cells share a genetic expression pattern that is repressed in normal differentiated cells, a finding that may have significant clinical implications for cancer therapeutics.
“Self-renewal is a hallmark of stem cells and cancer, but existence of a shared stemness program remains controversial,” explains study co-author, Dr. Howard Y. Chang from Stanford University. Dr. Chang, Dr. Eran Segal from the Weizmann Institute in Israel and their colleagues constructed a gene module map to systematically relate transcriptional programs in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), adult tissue stem cells and human cancers.
The researchers identified two predominant gene modules that distinguish ESCs and adult tissue stem cells. “Importantly, the ESC-like transcriptional program was activated in diverse human epithelial cancers and strongly predicted metastasis and death,” says Dr. Segal. Conversely, the adult tissue stem gene module had an opposite pattern, activated in normal tissues relative to cancer and repressed in various human cancers when compared to normal tissues. Read the rest of this entry »
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