The vulnerability? Found stem cells cancer

Western scientific publications of Science and Nature at the same time published three reports from independent groups from Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States of one and the same event - the opening of the so-called cancer stem cells.

According to the hypothesis, which appeared in the beginning of the nineties of the last century, these cells perform for the development of cancerous tumors of the same role, which ordinary stem cells perform for the development of the organism, that is, the division turn into the main cells of the cancerous tissue.

So far this hypothesis was considered very controversial, and, most importantly, very difficult to check. Now three groups, taking advantage of the new technology of creation of a cell markers, were able to look inside the tumor and find stem cells cancer.

The importance of opening is yet to be assessed, but the fact that it really is a huge breakthrough in the study of malignant tumors, no doubt, otherwise the permanent competitors Nature and Science would never went in violation of its own rules for such a step - simultaneous publication of one and the same opening.

The journal Nature published a message Belgian group from Brussels Free University and a group of researchers from the University of Texas, one of which is investigated in mice development of papillomas (structures prior to the emergence of a cancerous tumor), and the other studied in mice brain cancer. In both cases could be noticed that the tumor is initiated by a very small group of cells, similar to the stem. In a study of the Texas team also found was that in the course of chemotherapy, killing almost all of the cells of the tumor, the «stem» cells into hibernation, but after completion of the course «Wake up» and started to actively share, creating a new tumor.

Dutch scientists from the Institute of Hubert in Utrecht, who published his article in Science, went further. They have created a genetically modified mouse-confetti», in which the cells of the intestine have been painted in different colors depending on their type. They not only found the cells, which are beginning to form in the intestines of the tumor, but also found their connection with the gene Lgr5+, which participates in the creation of normal stem cells. In other words, they showed that the long-sought stem cells cancer is not that other, as modified normal stem cells.

Beat the cancer is not an easy task, and, possibly, the discovery of the few cells that generate it, will not be able to ultimately defeat this disease, because of the malignancy is the result of many different and sometimes the most unexpected factors. But, if the focus of attention of researchers on stem cancer cells and ultimately find a way to destroy them, it will help doctors make many kinds of cancer readily curable disease, which will not threaten new tumors and metastases after that, as with the existing able to cope.