What roles do colon stem cells and gap junctions play in the left and right location of origin of colorectal cancers?

James E Trosko; Heinz-Josef Lenz

doi:10.21767/2471-8203-C1-009

What roles do colon stem cells and gap junctions play in the left and right location of origin of colorectal cancers?

7^th European Congress on Obesity and Eating Disorder
April 12-13, 2018 Amsterdam, Netherlands

James E Trosko and Heinz-Josef Lenz

Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Obes Eat Disord

DOI: 10.21767/2471-8203-C1-009

Abstract

This “Commentary” examines an important clinical observation that right-sided colorectal cancers appear less treatable than the left-sided cancers. The concepts of (a) the “initiation/promotion/progression” process, (b) the stem cell hypothesis, (c) the role gap junctional intercellular communication, (d) cancer cells lacking GJIC either because of the non-expression of connexin genes or of non-functional gap junction pro-teins, and (e) the role of the microbiome in promoting initiated colon stem cells to divide symmetrically or asymmetrically are examined to find an explanation. It has been speculated that “embryonic-like” lesions in the ascending colon are initiated stem cells, promoted via symmetrical cell division, while the polyp-type lesions in the descending colon are initiated stem cells stimu-lated to divide asymmetrically. To test this hypothesis, experiments could be designed to examine if right-sided lesions might express Oct4A and ABCG2 genes but not any connexin genes, whereas the left-sided lesions might express a connexin gene, but not Oct4A or the ABCG2 genes. Treatment of the right sided lesions might include transcriptional regulators, whereas the left-sided lesions would need to restore the posttranslational status of the connexin proteins.