March 31, 2017
Keio University School of Medicine
A research team led by Associate Professor Toshiro Sato of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Keio University School of Medicine, has succeeded in the detailed functional analysis of “cancer stem cells,” which are responsible for the growth of colorectal cancer, and in the development of a therapy model targeting these cells.
"Cancer stem cells," which exist in small numbers within cancer tissues and are thought to be the driving force behind recurrence and metastasis, have long been a subject of research due to their great clinical significance. However, their detailed functions have not yet been elucidated. Associate Professor Sato's team has previously developed a technology to culture human colorectal cancer and reconstruct the cancer in vivo in mice. In this study, they applied genome editing technology to this technique to develop a method for observing the dynamics of specific human colorectal cancer cells in vivo in mice. This enabled them to successfully identify colorectal cancer stem cells and analyze their functions in vivo. Furthermore, they developed a therapy model targeting colorectal cancer stem cells and confirmed in mouse experiments that tumors shrink significantly only when this model is combined with existing anticancer drugs. This achievement provides a clear path toward elucidating cancer stem cell functions for the future curative treatment of colorectal cancer and for new drug discovery.
These research findings were published in the British scientific journal "Nature" on March 30, 2017.
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