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Updated: Jun 11, 2026

Pre-Conditioning the Airways of Mice with Bleomycin Increases the Efficiency of Orthotopic Lung Cancer Cell Engraftment
Published on: June 28, 2018
Cell of origin of lung cancer
Kate D Sutherland1, Anton Berns
1Division of Molecular Genetics and Centre for Biomedical Genetics, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. k.sutherland@nki.nl
Abstract:
Lung cancer is a devastating disease and a major therapeutic burden with poor survival rates. The discovery of rare cells with stem cell-like properties in solid tumours is emerging as an important area of cancer research and may help explain the resistance of these tumours to current therapeutics. Despite rapid developments in cancer stem cell research in other solid tumours, progress in the lung has been hampered by an incomplete understanding of the epithelial stem cell hierarchy, the heterogeneity of disease and the lack of a suitable in vivo transplantation model to assess stem cell behaviour. In this review we critically discuss what is currently known about the role of normal stem cells and cancer-initiating cells in lung tumour development, and briefly discuss strategies aimed at advancing the field of lung stem cell biology, with an emphasis on the design and manipulation of state-of-art mouse models.
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