Source: Stanford University Medical Center
Date: August 6, 2009
Summary:
STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered, for the first time, a common molecular pathway that is used by both normal stem cells and cancer stem cells when they reproduce themselves. In a paper to be published Aug. 7 in the journal Cell, Michael Clarke, MD, the Karel H. and Avice N. Beekhuis Professor in Cancer Biology, and his colleagues showed that breast cancer stem cells and normal breast stem cells turn down the creation of a specific group of cell signals when they are reproducing. Increasing the amount of one of these signals, called miR-200c, strongly suppressed the ability of both cancer stem cells and normal stem cells to divide and reproduce. The discovery of a common regulatory pathway in both kinds of stem cells supports the idea that cancer stem cells and normal stem cells share fundamental properties.
