title: The cancer stem cell hypothesis: a work in progress.
abstract: There is a growing body of evidence that supports the idea that malignant tumors are initiated and maintained by a population of tumor cells that share similar biologic properties to normal adult stem cells. This model, the cancer stem cell (CSC) hypothesis, is based on the observation that tumors, like adult tissues, arise from cells that exhibit the ability to self-renew as well as give rise to differentiated tissue cells. Although the concept of the CSC is not entirely new, advances made over the past two decades in our understanding of normal stem cell biology in conjunction with the recent application of these concepts to experimentally define CSCs have resulted in the identification of CSCs in several human malignancies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-5324, USA. btan@stanford.edu
authors.forename: Brenton Thomas
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Christopher Yongchul
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Laurie Elizabeth
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Ailles
authors.forename: Irving L
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Weissman
mesh_terms: D053687:Adult Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009385:Neoplastic Processes; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*