Adult Neurogenesis and Glial Oncogenesis: When the Process Fails

Figure 1

Cancer stem cell hypothesis. On the left, normal NSCs of the adult organism undergo extensive self-renewing division and give rise to a progenitor cell that differentiates into the three main neural lineages: neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. On the right, CSCs are derived from physiological NSCs, progenitor cells, or mature brain cell, which acquire the ability to generate tumors following genetic mutations. The tumor mass is composed by different cell populations. Most of these cells appear to be nontumorigenic and only a small subpopulation of them represent the CSCs.