Selected Aspects of Differentiation in Malignant Neoplastic Growth

It is widely accepted that malignant disease is associated with disorders in differentiation. Indeed, it has been observed that the patient with cancer is a product of abnormal cell differentiation (16). It is therefore likely that an understanding of cellular differentiation and an understanding of the development of neoplasia can lead to new strategies for the diagnosis and therapy of malignant disease. Many experimental research areas have been explored in the study of differentiation and cancer including: genetic control; chromosome abnormalities; growth regulation of malignant tumor cells; differentiation of stem cells; and the regulation of differentiation as a potential therapeutic modality (1, 21, 24, 25). This chapter will review molecular and cellular aspects of differentiation, its relevance to tumor progression and malignancy, and discuss the significance of these findings to therapeutic approaches for the control of malignant diseases.