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Håkan Axelson

Håkan Axelson

Research team manager

Håkan Axelson

Renal stem cells and their implications for kidney cancer.

Author

  • Håkan Axelson
  • Martin E Johansson

Summary, in English

The renal cell carcinomas (RCC) denote a diverse set of neoplasias with unique genetic and histological features. The RCCs emanate from the renal tubule, a highly heterogeneous epithelial structure, and depending on which cell is malignified the resulting cancer displays unique characteristics. Notwithstanding this, the cells of origin for the RCC forms are far from established, and only inferred by the accumulated weight of marker similarities, not always providing an unequivocal picture. The tubular epithelium is normally mitotically quiescent, but demonstrates a considerable regenerative capacity upon renal injury. Recently the hypothesis that regeneration is driven by adult stem cells has been added experimental support, providing further complexity to the issue of renal carcinogenesis. Whether these cells are linked to RCC is an open question. In the present review we therefore present the prevailing theories regarding kidney regeneration, since a better understanding of this process might be of relevance when considering the different malignancies that arise from kidney epithelium. Our own results show that papillary renal cell carcinoma displays considerable similarities to proximal tubular progenitor cells and we suggest that this tumor form may develop in a multi-step fashion via benign renal adenomas. The putative connection between renal stem cells and carcinomas is, however, not clarified, since the current understanding of the renal stem cell system is not complete. It is clear that the efforts to isolate and characterize renal progenitor/stem cells suffer from numerous technical limitations and that it remains likely that the kidney harbors different stem cell pools with a restricted differentiation potential.

Department/s

  • Division of Translational Cancer Research
  • Kidney cancer research group
  • BioCARE: Biomarkers in Cancer Medicine improving Health Care, Education and Innovation

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

56-61

Publication/Series

Seminars in Cancer Biology

Volume

23

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

Academic Press

Topic

  • Cancer and Oncology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Kidney cancer research group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1096-3650