Comment on basal epithelial stem cells as efficient targets for prostate cancer initiation

Human prostate adenocarcinoma is a multicentric disease with histological heterogeneity and variation in biological features. The present study showed that a cell with stem properties undergoing oncogenic transformation can produce prostate mouse lesions with varied histological phenotypes that resemble different grades of human prostate cancer. This powerful observation is consistent with the notion that a complex spectrum of prostate neoplasms may arise from a common cell of origin, facilitating future studies to understand the development of prostate disease. Even so, it must be noted that there is no conclusive evidence that stem cells are the source of human prostate cancer, and therefore additional studies are required comparing features and natural history of tumors generated by this approach with the process of oncogenesis in the human prostate.