Currently cancer stem cell concept is very controversial. As you can see from our previous post, in vivo assay can change the whole concept of cancer stem cell. I’d like to share the interview with John Dick, who identified and described hierarchy of leukemic stem cells (as example of cancer stem cells) back in 1994. He was interviewed by Monya Baker for Nature Reports Stem Cells in March of 2009.
some quotes from the interview:
about definitions:
A problem in the field is that people don’t ascribe to the same criteria. We use these words, ‘stem cell’ and ‘progenitor cell’, but the nature of the cell is essentially defined based on the assay by which it’s been identified.
about rush and controversies in cancer stem cell field:
There’s been a real rush onto the cancer stem cell bandwagon in the last couple of years. People are talking about cancer stem cells here, there and everywhere, and in any old cell line. There was a huge slippage in the kind of criteria and rigor. People were using this terminology without any thought or any rigor based on some cell-surface marker or something like that.
about assays:
People don’t like to do the tough assays, the three-month assays that you transplant in an animal for tumour formation. It’s much easier to go on a flow cytometer and find a marker and say it’s a cancer stem cell marker and say “now I’m studying cancer stem cells.
How can a stem cell scientist know whether to trust an assay?
What you really want to ask is: Will every stem cell in my test mixture read out in this assay and will every cell that’s not a stem cell not read out? Look at [Sean] Morrison: just by changing the environment, he went from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 4 [sampled cells reading as cancer stem cells]. He read out more of their stem cell potential.
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