间充质干细胞(MSCs)在恶性肿瘤发展过程中发挥的作用目前仍存有争议。已知MSCs具有自我更新、多向分化、定向趋化的能力,其在再生医学与组织工程中都占有不可忽视的地位。在一定条件下MSCs可能会促进恶性肿瘤细胞的生长,其原因可能涉及免疫抑制、血管形成、肿瘤炎症微环境的变化等多个方面。本文主要介绍间充质干细胞的生物学性状、其他在恶性肿瘤发生、发展中的作用、控制其生物学行为的方法及其在临床药物开发中的作用等方面的新进展。
The role of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the development of malignant tumors remains to be controversial. MSCs are known to have the capability of selfrenewing, multipotent differentiation and directed chemotaxis. And the role of MSCs in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering can not be ignored. MSCs may promote the growth of malignant tumor cells under certain conditions, which is probably related to various aspects, such as immune suppression, angiogenesis and changes of tumor inflammation microenvironment. Our study focused on the recent research about biological characteristics of MSCs and its role in generation and development of malignant tumors. Besides, the recent advances in methods to control the biological behavior of MSCs and its effect on clinical drug development are also concerned.