The Study Of Potentiality Of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Originating From A Hepatic Precursor Cell-Oval Cell

BackgroundThe occurrence of tumor is very complicated. Traditional theories tend to believe that tumor is a formation of abnormal proliferation and differentiation of cells affected by various initial and contributing factors for a long period. Researchers have been studying the origin of tumor cells and causes of cancer. They believe that by studying the pathogenesis of tumor, it is able to find an effective method to prevent and treat tumors. Relevant researches revealed that stem cells, as their most important and useful characteristics, can renew themselves. This is called the "self-renewal" of stem cells. The similarity between stem cells and tumor cells leads to a hypothesis: tumor cells originate from transformed stem cells; the same or similar signal channel regulates the self-renewing activity of both stem cells and tumor cells, and it is possible that tumor cells contain "tumor stem cells" (TSC), a small number of cells that can renew themselves and cause the occurrence of tumor. Currently, researches on tumor stem cells, particularly on stem cells of hematologic tumor, breast carcinoma, brain tumor, and prostatic cancer have achieved a certain degree of results. Despite of the progress of such researches, it is urgent to carry out laboratory studies to identify and separate stem cells in solid tumors and specify the characteristics of...