Nature子刊：四川大学莫贤明研究组发表癌症研究进展

2017年1月6日，国际学术权威刊物自然出版集团旗下子刊《Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy》杂志在线发表了四川大学生物治疗国家重点实验室干细胞生物学研究室莫贤明研究组的一篇研究论文，研究证实病人胃结直肠癌干细胞能够产生功能性神经元;这些由癌细胞形成的神经元参与构成癌旁和癌组织内的神经节，支持癌症生长;团队初步在肺癌干细胞中得到相同的结果。以博士生陆然和范川文博士为论文共同第一作者。

在100多年前，科学家们已发现癌组织内有神经组织，近期证实了癌组织的神经组织在癌形成与发生中具有重要的作用，但对于癌组织的神经组织来源与构造不清楚。四川大学华西医院团队在研究中发现：人胃癌和结直肠癌肿瘤干细胞在体外培养中用诱导神经干细胞分化的培养基对肿瘤干细胞进行诱导分化可以使肿瘤干细胞产生带有神经突触标志以及带有交感神经元和副交感神经元标志的神经元;在免疫缺陷的裸鼠腹腔内形成移植瘤时，能参与肿瘤组织中和癌旁神经节的构建。值得注意的是，干扰肿瘤干细胞的神经分化潜能后能够明显抑制其在免疫缺陷动物体内产生的移植瘤的生长。该研究表明，胃肠道肿瘤的肿瘤干细胞具有神经分化潜能，并能够通过分化产生神经细胞促进肿瘤的发展。肿瘤干细胞不但能够产生大量肿瘤细胞构建与原发肿瘤高度相似的新肿瘤，也能通过分化产生多种具有特定功能的细胞参与构建肿瘤生长和发展所必需的肿瘤微环境。该研究结果超越了目前对癌症组织结构的认知，加深了对肿瘤微环境形成过程和肿瘤自我维持能力的认识，可能促使形成新的癌症理论和治疗方案。

原文链接：

原文摘要：

Recent evidences show that nervous system acts as a crucial part of cancer microenvironment. Infiltration of nerve fibers into cancer microenvironment has an important active role in cancer progression. The stimulations of both cancer growth and metastasis by members of nervous system such as neurons and glial cells have been demonstrated. However, how the nervous system is built in cancer is largely unknown. Here we show that a fraction of cancer stem cells (CSCs) derived from patients with gastric carcinoma and colorectal carcinoma are capable of producing neurons that are involved in tumor neurogenesis and tumor growth. Cancer stem cell monoclone derived from a single cancer stem cell was able to generate neurons including sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons to take part in the nervous system in cancer tissues. Knocking down the neural cell generating capability of the human CSCs inhibited the growth of xenograft tumors in mouse model. Our data demonstrate that human CSCs are able to produce one of most important components in the cancer microenvironment that are required for cancer development and progression.