PMID: 3756880Oct 1, 1986Paper

Differentiation, dedifferentiation, and transdifferentiation of BALB/c 3T3 T mesenchymal stem cells: potential significance in metaplasia and neoplasia

Cancer Research
R L SparksR E Scott

Abstract

The expression of defects in the control of cellular differentiation is thought to be of etiological significance in the early stages of carcinogenesis. This possibility is supported by a variety of experimental studies including those that have established that metaplastic changes in cells can represent preneoplastic lesions in vivo. To evaluate this question in greater detail, we have used 3T3 T mesenchymal stem cells as a model system. These cells express certain characteristics of preneoplastic cells even though they can regulate their proliferation and even though they can undergo nonterminal and terminal differentiation into adipocytes. For example, they are immortal and aneuploid, and they show a proclivity to undergo spontaneous or induced neoplastic transformation compared to normal human cells. The question we sought to answer in the current experiments concerns whether predifferentiation growth arrest and/or nonterminal differentiation in such preneoplastic cells is completely reversible or whether these processes induce the expression of the new stable program that limits the cells' proliferative potential and reduces the cells' subsequent differentiation potential in a manner comparable to that which is thought to ...Continue Reading

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