Evidence of Distinct Tumour-Propagating Cell Populations with Different Properties in Primary Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Individual HCCs can harbor different self-renewing tumorigenic cell types expressing a variety of morphological and phenotypical markers, karyotypic evolution and different gene expression profiles. This suggests that the models of hepatic carcinogenesis should take into account TPC heterogeneity due to intratumour clonal evolution.