title: Experimental teratoma: at the crossroad of fetal- and onco-development.
abstract: Xenografting is the so far only available in vivo model for assessing pluripotency of human stem cells. This review describes known biological features of experimental teratoma from human pluripotent stem cells. We focus on the dual nature mimicking both normal and abnormal development, and propose this model system to be particularly interesting for investigations of the relationship between developmentally controlled differentiation and neoplasia of embryonic origin. In resemblance to the wide range of clinical teratomas, pluripotent stem cell (PSC) induced teratoma (PSCT) typically shows a mixture of developing tissues in randomly distributed compartments. The combined literature suggests that for teratomas derived from human diploid bona fide PSC the embryonic development in the separate tissue-niches can show a controlled differentiation into organoid patterns closely mimicking early development. In the experimental situation such PSCT human homologous in vivo tissue-niches have been shown to provide also matching microenvironment for a micrometastatic colonization and outgrowth of embryonic tumors transplanted directly from patients. Single or small clusters of normal and neoplastic cells can easily be visualized together in microscope-based imaging systems, enabling multi-parameter detection of in the scans of tissue slides/specimens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 17176 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Isabell
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hultman
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 17176 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Björk
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 17176 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Evelina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Blomberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 17176 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Bengt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sandstedt
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, 17176 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: lars.ahrlund@ki.se.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ahrlund-Richter
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D060833:Cellular Microenvironment; D047108:Embryonic Development; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009368:Neoplasm Transplantation; D039904:Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000637:transplantation*; D013724:Teratoma / Q000473:pathology*; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous
keywords: Cancer; Pluripotency; Stem cells; Teratoma