グリオーマ

Glioma-initiating cell

近年の発生生物学と再生医学の研究により発見された様々な神経幹細胞の性状と特異的マーカーを利用して，悪性グリオーマ内にグリオーマ幹細胞の存在が証明された．グリオーマ幹細胞は自己複製能，腫瘍形成能，様々な抗癌剤や放射線療法に対する抵抗性を有し，グリオーマ治療の重要な標的と考えられている．本稿では，現在までに報告されたグリオーマ幹細胞特異的因子群について概説するとともに，私たちが進めてきた人工グリオーマ幹細胞研究により明らかにしたグリオーマ幹細胞因子群について紹介し，今後のグリオーマ幹細胞研究の展望について論じる．

Recent studies have demonstrated that malignant gliomas contain the glioma-initiating cell (GIC), which self-renews, is tumorigenic, and is resistant to both irradiation and chemotherapy.　These findings suggest that GICs are critical targets for successful therapy.　However, GICs have not been well characterized, due to a lack of specific markers for them.　We established mouse GIC lines, by overexpressing oncogenic HRas^L61 in p53-deficient neural cells.　These cells form transplantable glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) with features of human GBM when as few as 10 cells are transplanted in vivo.　Characterization of these GICs revealed a number of novel targets for diagnosis and therapy, including Sox11, Plagl1, EGFR ligands and Cox2.　Here I summarize recent findings by us and others and discuss future GIC research and therapy.