What is cancer cell heterogeneity?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Tumour heterogeneity describes the observation that different tumour cells can show distinct morphological and phenotypic profiles, including cellular morphology, gene expression, metabolism, motility, proliferation, and metastatic potential.
What drives tumor heterogeneity?
Phenotypic and functional heterogeneity arise among cancer cells within the same tumor as a consequence of genetic change, environmental differences, and reversible changes in cellular properties.
Does heterogeneous mean cancerous?
Cancer is a heterogeneous disease. Practically from the moment pathologists first looked at human cancers under the microscope, they saw that differing histologic appearances could define distinct subtypes of cancers from the same primary site of origin.
What is plasticity in cancer cell?
Plasticity endows cancer cells with the capacity to shift dynamically between a differentiated state, with limited tumorigenic potential, and an undifferentiated or cancer stem-like cell (CSC) state, which is responsible for long-term tumor growth.
What is cell heterogeneity?
Heterogeneity is essentially a statistical properly of cellular populations. A range of cellular behaviors can be estimated from observations of a small number of cells over long times, or a large number of cells at a small number of times.
What does it mean if a tumor is heterogeneous?
Tumor heterogeneity refers to observations that although cancer formation is believed to be a clonal process beginning with a single transformed cell, not all malignant cells within a tumor are the same.
Are malignant tumors heterogeneous?
Human cancers frequently display substantial intra-tumor heterogeneity in virtually all distinguishable phenotypic features, such as cellular morphology, gene expression (including the expression of cell surface markers and growth factor and hormonal receptors), metabolism, motility, and angiogenic, proliferative.
What do you mean of plasticity?
Plasticity, ability of certain solids to flow or to change shape permanently when subjected to stresses of intermediate magnitude between those producing temporary deformation, or elastic behaviour, and those causing failure of the material, or rupture (see yield point).
What role does cellular plasticity play in cancer survival and propagation?
In the context of anti-cancer therapies, cell plasticity enables tumour cells to change to a cell phenotypic identity that may be dependent (or not) on the drug target but without additional secondary genetic mutations.
What is intra Tumour heterogeneity?
Intratumor heterogeneity (also known as intralesion heterogeneity) refers to distinct tumor cell populations (with different molecular and phenotypical profiles) within the same tumor specimen [1]. Cancer is typically defined as a genetic disease driven by oncogenic mutations.
How does heterogeneity affect the function of cancer cells?
Phenotypic and functional heterogeneity arise among cancer cells within the same tumour as a consequence of genetic change, environmental differences and reversible changes in cell properties. Some cancers also contain a hierarchy in which tumorigenic cancer stem cells differentiate into non-tumorigenic progeny.
How does cellular plasticity affect the development of cancer?
Under such circumstances, cellular plasticity serves as a mechanism of tissue adaptation or regeneration, but it can also predispose tissues to cancerous transformation. Although loss of normal cell identity and function is intrinsic to the malignant process, cancer cells undergo further phenotypic changes during tumor progression and treatment.
How does pliability affect the development of cancer?
The resulting pliability in cell state can facilitate multiple aspects of tumor progression, including tumor initiation and metastasis, immune evasion, and chemoresistance. Consequently, elucidating the mechanisms by which cancer cells exploit plasticity to cope with selective pressures may lead to novel therapeutic opportunities.
How are stem cells differentiate into non tumorigenic progeny?
Some cancers also contain a hierarchy in which tumorigenic cancer stem cells differentiate into non-tumorigenic progeny. However, it remains unclear what fraction of cancers follow the stem-cell model and what clinical behaviours the model explains.
