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Angiogenesis

Multipotent tumour endothelial cells

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 8, pages 828–829 (2008)Cite this article

Andrew Dudley, Michael Klagsbrun and colleagues isolated TECs from a transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate (TRAMP) model and found that TECs expressed some of the same markers as ECs and functioned as bona fide endothelium in that they formed blood vessels when engrafted into mice. However, the TECs expressed some atypical haematopoietic stem cell and mesenchymal stem cell markers when compared with ECs. The TECs formed mesenchymal cell-like foci in culture and were CD90+ and CD34−, consistent with a mesenchymal stem cell-like profile. They were able to differentiate into cartilage- and bone-like cells in vitro and, after prolonged culture in osteogenic conditions, underwent calcification. Calcification is a characteristic of human prostate tumours, and the authors found calcification in prostate tumours and tumour blood vessels in the TRAMP model.

These findings raise the intriguing possibility that multipotent tumour endothelial cells may act like cancer stem cells and differentiate into atypical cell lineages in the tumour microenvironment. It now remains to be determined whether these properties of TECs are related to the abnormalities seen in tumour blood vessels and whether calcification might facilitate metastasis and impair blood vessel-related processes, such as contraction and blood flow. In addition, vascular calcification in tumours is easily detected using standard histological techniques and could potentially be a diagnostic tool.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Dudley, A. C. et al. Calcification of multipotent prostate tumor endothelium. Cancer Cell 14, 201–211 (2008)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Bertolini, F., Shaked, Y., Mancuso, P. & Kerbel, R. S. The multifaceted circulating endothelial cell in cancer: towards marker and target identification. Nature Rev. Cancer 6, 835–845 (2006)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Meera Swami
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Swami, M. Multipotent tumour endothelial cells. Nat Rev Cancer 8, 828–829 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2526

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2526

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