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Cancer

Stem cells and brain tumours

Nature volume 444, pages 687–688 (2006)Cite this article

Stem cells are increasingly implicated in maintaining certain cancers. Studies of an intractable type of brain tumour provide hints as to why such cells may underlie the tumours' resistance to therapy.

Cancers are notorious for their ability to survive treatment and recur. Hopes of understanding how they can do so, however, have grown with the prospective identification of rare populations of cancer stem cells in solid tumours1,2. Two studies in this issue3,4 mark a step towards realizing these hopes, and provide further insight into the stem-cell nature of human glioblastoma, an especially nasty type of brain cancer. Both studies build on the identification2 of a tumour-initiating subpopulation of cells that express a cell-surface marker, CD133, that is a hallmark of neural precursor cells.

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Figure 1: Response of glioblastomas to ionizing radiation and bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs).

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  1. Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5G 1X8, Ontario, Canada

    Peter B. Dirks

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  1. Peter B. Dirks
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Dirks, P. Stem cells and brain tumours. Nature 444, 687–688 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/444687a

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