A surprise cell of origin for Barrett's esophagus.
- von Holzen U Department of Surgery, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
- Enders GH
- 2012-05-03
Published in:
- Cancer biology & therapy. - 2012
English
Barrett's esophagus is a metaplasia of the distal esophagus that is the only recognized precursor of esophageal adenocarcinoma. Despite a characteristic histology, the pathogenesis of Barrett's has remained obscure. A recent paper from the laboratories of Wa Xian and Frank McKeon presents evidence for a novel cell of origin of Barrett's. Their work is based on studies of mice engineered to lack the squamous epithelial stem cell survival factor p63. These mice develop a metaplasia of the proximal stomach and esophagus that harbors substantial histological and molecular features of Barrett's. The metaplasia appears to form from embryonic progenitor cells that normally persists post-natally only at the squamo-columnar junction. Moreover, in their model, the metaplasia is initiated not by mutation but by reduced competition between these cells and squamous epithelial cells.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- bronze
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.4161/cbt.20088
- PMID 22549156
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/232744
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