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Clonogens and cancer stem cells

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 8, page 990 (2008)Cite this article

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We would like to thank Maurice Tubiana and Serge Koscielny for their comments on our Opinion article (Exploring the role of cancer stem cells in radioresistance. Nature Rev. Cancer 8, 545–554 (2008))1, which raise some important issues (On clonogenic tumour cells and metastasis-forming cells Nature Rev. Cancer 8, 990 (2008))2.

We have chosen not to use the terms colony-forming unit and clonogenic cell as synonyms for cancer stem cells, because these terms, in our opinon, may potentially be confused with cells characterized by their ability to form colonies of more than 50 daughter cells in culture. There is significant evidence that there are more cells that can form colonies in culture than would be regarded as stem cells based on in vivo testing (bone marrow is an excellent example, in addition to examples for tumour cells and xenografts3,4). However, as we point out in our article, culture conditions and transplant conditions can affect the numbers obtained in such studies. Furthermore, fetal calf serum is reported to induce differentiation5,6, and it has been suggested that it may affect what is analysed in clonogenic assays in vitro. The studies mentioned by Tubiana and Koscielny are important and, with the limitations mentioned above, indeed provide further support for the hypothesis that cancer stem cells might have different biological behaviour and different radiosensitivity compared with non-stem cells. The first studies provide evidence that the cell-cycle time is different between clonogenic and non-clonogenic tumour cells in vitro7,8,9. It would be interesting to explore whether similar differences exist between cancer stem cells and non-stem cells in vivo. To our knowledge, there are currently no data on this question.

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Author notes

  1. Richard Hill is at the Department of Medical Biophysics, Princess Margaret Hospital, Ontario Cancer Institute, University of Toronto, 610 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9, Canada.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael Baumann and Mechthild Krause are at the Department of Radiation Oncology and OncoRay Center for Radiation Research in Oncology, and Michael Baumann is also at the University Cancer Center, Medical Faculty and University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Fetscherstrasse 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany.,

    Michael Baumann, Mechthild Krause & Richard Hill

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  2. Mechthild Krause
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Correspondence to Michael Baumann.

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Baumann, M., Krause, M. & Hill, R. Clonogens and cancer stem cells. Nat Rev Cancer 8, 990 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2419-c2

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