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Differentiation and cancer

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Summary

Cancer is discussed from a standpoint of a postembryonic differentiation. A differentiation requires the interaction of an exogenous inductive stimulus with competent precursor cell, which then evolve a new tissue with unique, stable heritable properties distinguishable from the progenitor. Evidence is cited pinpointing the normal stem cells of tissues as the competent target precursor cells in carcinogenesis. The resultant phenotype differs from its progenitor and has stable and unique characteristics. All of the characteristics associated with malignancy are expressed during some stage of development, suggesting that the normal genome contains the information necessary for malignant expression, and that the mechanism of malignancy is probably an alteration of control of genomic expression.

Malignant tissue, like normal tissue, maintains itself by proliferation and differentiation of its stem cells; at least, that is what was observed in two tumors examined. In each of these tumors the differentiated progeny of the malignant stem cells proved to be benign.

A third tumor was adapted to growth in vitro and under the conditions of the experiments could be modulated by altering the in vitro conditions. These data suggest that direction of the naturally occurring differentiation that occurs in tumors may be a suitable therapeutic alternative to cytotoxic chemotherapy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, University of Colorado Medical Center, 80220, Denver, Colorado

    G. Barry Pierce & Lewis D. Johnson

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  1. G. Barry Pierce
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  2. Lewis D. Johnson
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Additional information

Supported in part by Grant E105 from the American Cancer Society and Grant AM 13112 from the United States Public Health Service.

Supported by a Traineeship from National Institutes of Health Training Grant GM 00977.

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Barry Pierce, G., Johnson, L.D. Differentiation and cancer. In Vitro 7, 140–145 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02617957

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