I thought tumor-initiating cells are crucial in tumor initiating as it names and cancer stem cells are essential for maintenance of the population of cancer cells and account for treatment resistance. I thoght they are different cells. But a lot of paper describe the two population cells as the same. I wander whether tumor-initiating cells equal to cancer stem cells.
In my understanding, tumour initiating cells are cells that are transformed by a carcinogen, and then undergo a promotion phase, before they become clonogenic, i.e. they can proliferate independently of any external stimulus. These then are the cancer stem cells.
WD
Here are some concepts cancer researchers borrowed form developmental biology and always confused the field. The following are what I understand.
Cells of origin of a certain cancer (in my opinion should be restrict to a certain lesion type): are the cells of a particular lineage or several lineages that after obtaining certain oncogenic lesions could form tumor. Thus experimentally has to be proofed by linage tracing assays.
Cancer stem cell aka Tumor initiation cells: therefore is a model that described the differentiation hierarchy of a established tumor. The cancer stem cell population is context dependent thus will not always equal to cells of origin. e.g tumors under treatment of a drug may have a completely different population that maintains the growth potential comparing to that of a tumor without treatment. Experimentally these can be tested using transplantation assays (yet not optimal, should use more sophisticated marker driven depletion assays in vivo, Diphtheria Toxin etc.).
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