Credit: NIH
A new study provides “conclusive evidence” to support the existence of cancer stem cells in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), according to researchers.
The group analyzed malignant cells in the bone marrow of MDS patients and identified a distinct subset of cells that showed all the hallmarks of cancer stem cells.
Only these MDS stem cells—none of the other malignant cells—were able to propagate the disease.
The researchers reported these discoveries in Cancer Cell.
Petter Woll, PhD, of the University of Oxford in the UK, and his colleagues conducted this research, analyzing bone marrow cells from 15 patients with low- or intermediate-risk MDS.
The team set out to establish in which cells cancer-driving mutations originated. This led them to a rare subset of MDS cells—Lin-CD34+CD38-CD90+CD45RA- cells—that appeared to have all the properties of cancer stem cells.
These cells sat at the top of a hierarchy of MDS cells, could sustain themselves and replenish the other MDS cells, and were the origin of all stable DNA changes and mutations that drove the progression of MDS.
“This is conclusive evidence for the existence of cancer stem cells in myelodysplastic syndromes,” Dr Woll said. “We have identified a subset of cancer cells [and] shown that these rare cells are invariably the cells in which the cancer originates and also are the only cancer-propagating cells in the patients.”
Study author Sten Eirik W. Jacobsen, MD, PhD, also of the University of Oxford, noted that cancer stem cells have already been reported in a number of malignancies.
But previous findings have remained controversial, since the lab tests used to establish the identity of cancer stem cells have been shown to be unreliable.
“In our studies, we avoided the problem of unreliable lab tests by tracking the origin and development of cancer-driving mutations in MDS patients,” Dr Jacobsen said.
Dr Woll added that this research provides a target for the development of more efficient therapies for MDS.
“We need to understand more about what makes these cancer stem cells unique, what makes them different to all the other cancer cells,” he said. “If we can find biological pathways that are specifically dysregulated in cancer stem cells, we might be able to target them with new drugs.”
