Researchers reported that they have been able to break apart normal human prostate tissue, extract the stem cells in that tissue, and alter those cells genetically so that they spur cancer. This effort should provide a model for studying so-called “cancer stem cells,” i.e., cancer cells that develop from stem cells in the body and that are believed to be the origin of many cancers. This model may prove useful in understanding how cancers grow--and provide a new opportunity to test and identify novel cancer drugs. Many tissues contain pools of normal stem cells that replenish the tissue when it's damaged or when changes take place. For instance, stem cells in the skin produce new cells to replace those irreparably damaged by the sun, and stem cells in the breast create milk-producing cells when a woman is pregnant. The hallmark of these stem cells is that they self-renew. This means that in addition to making cells with a specific function, they also make many new stem cells. Mounting evidence suggests that these self-renewing cells are also tied to cancer. They tend to collect mutations, said Dr. Owen Witte, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator at UCLA, who was scheduled to present his group’s data on February 20, 2010, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego; and not much separates tumor cells, with their capacity for unchecked growth, from healthy, tissue-forming stem cells. "These cells have a huge capacity for self-renewal, and when the pathways that control self-renewal are augmented or changed, they can form tumors," Dr. Witte said.
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