TCam-2 Cells Deficient for SOX2 and FOXA2 Are Blocked in Differentiation and Maintain a Seminoma-Like Cell Fate In Vivo.

ABSTRACT: Testicular germ cell tumors (GCTs) are very common in young men and can be stratified into seminomas and non-seminomas. While seminomas share a similar gene expression and epigenetic profile with primordial germ cells, the stem cell population of the non-seminomas, the embryonal carcinoma (EC), resembles malignant embryonic stem cells. Thus, ECs are able to differentiate into cells of all three germ layers (teratomas) and even extra-embryonic-tissue-like cells (yolk-sac tumor, choriocarcinoma). In the last years, we demonstrated that the cellular microenvironment considerably influences the plasticity of seminomas (TCam-2 cells). Upon a microenvironment-triggered inhibition of the BMP signaling pathway in vivo (murine flank or brain), seminomatous TCam-2 cells reprogram to an EC-like cell

SUBMITTER: Nettersheim D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6562827 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature