Stem cells: when they’re bad, they’re naughty

globeandmail.com: Stem cells core of more cancers

Grumble, grumble.  I can’t access Sunday’s two Nature advance articles, on the role played by stem cells in tumor growth. (Nature and its ilk are way too expensive for our small local college to carry, which made teaching upper-level biology there . . . interesting). This mainstream media summary is pretty good, though.

No one disputes the similarities between cancer cells and stem cells. The broad question is how this similarity arises. Do differentiated tumor cells, through mutation, acquire stem-cell-like properties, or do endogenous adult stem cells become cancerous? If the latter (and the hypothesis does make a lot of sense), stem cells could be hidden ringleaders promoting tumor growth, which could change the methods used to treat cancer substantially.

Although stem cells are mostly known for their “good” potential to repair and replace cells lost to trauma or chronic disease, researchers have always been concerned about the risk of stem cells growing uncontrollably. In some cases, experimental stem cell transplants have resulted in tumors. However, I don’t think most people realized stem cells gone bad could be the root of familiar cancers like colon cancer. When stem cells are good, they are very, very good; but they may be naughtier than we knew.