Fusion of bone marrow-derived cells with cancer cells: metastasis as a secondary disease in cancer.

Author: John M PAWELEK ¹
Author Information

1. Department of Dermatology and the Yale Cancer Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8059, USA. john.pawelek@yale.edu.
Publication Type:Journal Article
MeSH: Animals; Bone Marrow Cells; cytology; pathology; Cell Fusion; Humans; Hybrid Cells; pathology; Neoplasm Metastasis; Neoplasms; pathology; Neoplastic Stem Cells; pathology
From:Chinese Journal of Cancer 2014;33(3):133-139
CountryChina
Language:English
Abstract: This perspective article highlights the leukocyte-cancer cell hybrid theory as a mechanism for cancer metastasis. Beginning from the first proposal of the theory more than a century ago and continuing today with the first proof for this theory in a human cancer, the hybrid theory offers a unifying explanation for metastasis. In this scenario, leukocyte fusion with a cancer cell is a secondary disease superimposed upon the early tumor, giving birth to a new, malignant cell with a leukocyte-cancer cell hybrid epigenome.