癌症是全球主要的公共卫生问题,是导致死亡的主要原因之一。虽然可用的治疗方法提高了一些病例的存活率,许多晚期肿瘤对这些治疗不敏感。癌细胞分化使恶性表型恢复到其原始状态,甚至可以诱导分化为其他组织中发现的细胞类型。在高级别肿瘤中利用分化诱导治疗提供了一种较不积极的策略来抑制肿瘤进展并提高化疗敏感性。分化诱导疗法已被证明对多种肿瘤细胞有效。例如,分化治疗已成为急性早幼粒细胞白血病的首选,治愈率达90%以上。虽然是一个吸引人的概念,分化治疗的机制和临床药物仍处于起步阶段,保证进一步调查。在这次审查中,我们研究了目前的分化诱导治疗方法,并讨论了临床应用以及分化诱导剂的潜在生物学基础。
Cancer is a major public health issue globally and is one of the leading causes of death. Although available treatments improve the survival rate of some cases, many advanced tumors are insensitive to these treatments. Cancer cell differentiation reverts the malignant phenotype to its original state and may even induce differentiation into cell types found in other tissues. Leveraging differentiation-inducing therapy in high-grade tumor masses offers a less aggressive strategy to curb tumor progression and heightens chemotherapy sensitivity. Differentiation-inducing therapy has been demonstrated to be effective in a variety of tumor cells. For example, differentiation therapy has become the first choice for acute promyelocytic leukemia, with the cure rate of more than 90%. Although an appealing concept, the mechanism and clinical drugs used in differentiation therapy are still in their nascent stage, warranting further investigation. In this review, we examine the current differentiation-inducing therapeutic approach and discuss the clinical applications as well as the underlying biological basis of differentiation-inducing agents.