Thèse soutenue

Révéler l'identité et le destin des cellules exprimant Notch1 dans les tumeurs intestinales
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Auteur / Autrice : Larissa Mourão
Direction : Silvia Fre
Type : Thèse de doctorat
Discipline(s) : Biologie cellulaire
Date : Soutenance le 12/09/2017
Etablissement(s) : Paris 6
Ecole(s) doctorale(s) : École doctorale Complexité du vivant (Paris)
Partenaire(s) de recherche : Laboratoire : Génétique et biologie du développement (Paris ; 2009-....)
Jury : Président / Présidente : Thierry Jaffredo
Examinateurs / Examinatrices : Béatrice Romagnolo, Michel Cohen-Tannoudji
Rapporteurs / Rapporteuses : Lluís Espinosa Blay, Philippe Jay

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Résumé

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Stem cells and cancer are inextricably linked and many tumours, including colorectal cancers, contain a small population of self-renewing cells, referred to as cancer stem cells (CSCs), able to give rise to proliferating but progressively differentiating cells that contribute to the cellular heterogeneity typical of solid tumours. Thus, the identification of CSCs and the factors that regulate their behaviour should have a profound impact on cancer treatment. Notch signalling controls the maintenance and differentiation of stem cells in several tissues, including the intestine, where it is essential for stem cells maintenance. Based on these premises, my work was aimed at identifying and characterising the cells that express the Notch1 receptor in intestinal tumours in vivo, with the objective of getting insights into the cellular hierarchy of colon cancer cells. We found that the Notch1 receptor is expressed in rare undifferentiated tumour cells that present self-renewal and multipotency in vivo, as they indefinitely give rise to marked differentiated tumour cells and fuel tumour growth. Our analysis on the transcriptomic profile of these cells confirmed our in vivo observations that Notch1+ tumour cells represent a specific population of highly proliferative tumour cells, expressing several, but not all, known markers of normal intestinal stem cells (ISCs). Indeed, their transcriptional signature highly correlates with normal ISCs. Given that the tumour cells we characterised appear not to carry Apc mutations, we hypothesise that during the earlies steps of tumourigenesis, normal Notch1+ ISCs are engulfed within the nascent tumour (in aberrant hyperproliferative crypts) and are able to grow and expand within this new ecosystem, as they are supported by extrinsic secreted growth factors from the neighbouring mutant cells. The concept that normal ISCs might contribute to tumour expansion highlights the complications that patients can encounter during treatment, since these cells share many features with their wild-type counterparts, making therapy deleterious to normal ISCs.