According to modern concepts of cell biology, normal and neoplastic stem cells differentiate irreversibly, giving "non-stem" offspring.

American scientists from the Cambridge Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have found that other options are possible. They revealed a subpopulation of basal cells of the epithelium of the mammary gland, capable of spontaneous dedifferentiation into stem cells. Oncogenic transformation enhances the propensity to this spontaneous conversion, so that non-barrel cancer cells can give rise to stem cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo.

Thus, the results of the work showed that normal and cancer stem cells can be de novo formed from already differentiated cells, and that the hierarchical model adopted in cell biology with one-sided development is not always correct. In particular, in some populations of mammary gland cells, the cells may reverse the way to stem.

Detected plasticity can allow patient-specific stem cells to be obtained without the use of genetic manipulation.

According to Dr. P. Katunyan, the head physician of the Moscow Center for Biomedical Technologies, this discovery can be of great practical importance for the development of methods for the treatment of cancer.

News. Gradusnik. En.