Damaged stem cells 'ignite cancer'
Updated on 17 December 2008
Defective stem cells "ignite" a common cancer by rapidly multiplying to form tumours, say scientists.
The research suggests that stem cells are the root cause of most cases of bowel cancer, which affects more than 36,500 people in the UK each year and kills around 16,000.
Stem cells are immature cells that can develop into a range of different tissues.
Scientists have long suspected that they play an important role in bowel cancer.
But it has not been clear whether the defects that lead to cancer occur in the stem cells themselves, or their more differentiated "daughter" cells.
At least part of the question was answered when British and Dutch researchers isolated stem cells in the bowels of mice and deleted a gene from them called APC (adenomatous polyposis coli).
The damaged stem cells began to multiply rapidly and form tumours.
Study author Dr Owen Sansom, from Cancer Research UK's Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, said: "When we studied the effect of blocking the APC gene in the 'parents' - or stem cells - the results were striking and the cells started to transform within days. It was clear the 'ignition point' for the disease was to be found in the stem cells.
"Using the same experiment, the daughter cells also developed in to tumours, but not nearly as often as the stem cells changed. We are now looking to understand how we can use these results to seek out and destroy stem cells that are lacking the APC gene."
Another member of the team, Professor Hans Clevers, from the Hubrecht Institute said: "We are very excited by these findings but we need to establish whether the stem cells behave the same way in human cancers as they do in mice - and this will form the basis of the next stage of our research."
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