肠道上皮细胞系是人体细胞更新最快的组织,更新速率甚至远远超过了肿瘤组织,这种无与伦比的更新速率如同一把双刃剑,一方面可以迅速的更新和修复肠粘膜,另一方面却大大增加了肠道细胞恶化的易感性。Wnt信号、Notch信号、BMP信号都参与了隐窝干细胞增殖分化的平衡,它们中任何一个组分发生突变或异常都将会导致结肠癌的发生。结肠癌的发生很可能是肠隐窝干细胞分化受阻的结果,隐窝干细胞是致瘤起始事件或突变的标靶。
The intestinal epithelium follows the paradigms of stem cell biology established for other self-renewing tissues. With a unique topology, it constitutes a two-dimensional structure folded into valleys and hills: the proliferative crypts and the differentiated villi. Its unprecedented self-renewal rate appears reflected in a high susceptibility to renewal and those that underlie colorectal cancer are remarkably symmetrical. Wnt, BMP, and Notch signaling cascades play a critical roles in epithelial self-renewal and cancer. The malignant transformation of the intestinal epithelial cells does not rely on mutational changes in generic oncogenes or tumor suppressors, rather, the transformation process appears to specifically subvert the physiological regulators of the epithelium, the mutation of colon stem cell maybe an initial story of oncogenesis, colorectal cancer is the results of depressed of colon stem cell differention.