Cellular and genetic diversity in the progression of in situ human breast carcinomas to an invasive phenotype.

ABSTRACT: Intratumor genetic heterogeneity is a key mechanism underlying tumor progression and therapeutic resistance. The prevailing model for explaining intratumor diversity, the clonal evolution model, has recently been challenged by proponents of the cancer stem cell hypothesis. To investigate this issue, we performed combined analyses of markers associated with cellular differentiation states and genotypic alterations in human breast carcinomas and evaluated diversity with ecological and evolutionary methods. Our analyses showed a high degree of genetic heterogeneity both within and between distinct tumor cell populations that were defined based on markers of cellular phenotypes including stem cell-like characteristics. In several tumors, stem cell-like and more-differentiated cancer cell popul

SUBMITTER: Park SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2810089 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature