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Molecular heterogeneity of breast carcinomas and the cancer stem cell hypothesis

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 7, pages 791–799 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Human breast cancers are heterogeneous, both in their pathology and in their molecular profiles. This suggests the hypothesis that breast cancers can initiate in different cell types, either breast epithelial stem cells or their progeny (transit amplifying cells or committed differentiated cells). In this respect, breast cancer could be viewed as being similar to haematological malignancies for which an analogous model has been proposed. Drawing such parallels might help to unravel the molecular nature of the initiating events in breast cancer and might have substantial clinical implications.

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Figure 1: Proposed epithelial cell hierarchy and the respective cellular phenotypes present in the human and mouse mammary glands.
Figure 2: Strategy to decipher the cellular targets of different oncogenic mutations and different cancer stem cell phenotypes.

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Acknowledgements

J. S. is supported by funds provided by the Breast Cancer Campaign and C. C. is supported by Cancer Research UK. The authors would like to thank P. Eirew for critical reading of the manuscript.

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  1. John Stingl is at the Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP, UK.,

    John Stingl

  2. and Department of Oncology, Carlos Caldas is at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Li Ka Shing Centre, Cambridge CB2 0RE, UK.,

    Carlos Caldas

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Stingl, J., Caldas, C. Molecular heterogeneity of breast carcinomas and the cancer stem cell hypothesis. Nat Rev Cancer 7, 791–799 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2212

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