Cancer Research UK scientists have uncovered evidence suggesting stem cells are the root cause of bowel cancer, and have published this evidence in Nature.
Scientists at Cancer Research UK's Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow; Cardiff University; and the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands, isolated stem cells in the bowels of mice and knocked out of them a gene called APC.
These damaged stem cells then rapidly started to multiply out of control and began to form tumours.
Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK and affects more than 36,500 people each year.
This research could pave the way for new treatments to target damaged stem cells and quench their ignition of the disease.
A stem cell is one that produces two daughter-cells when it divides.
One remains a stem cell, while the other multiplies into the cells required by its organ to keep functioning.
Previously, scientists could not be sure if the cancer-causing faults occurred directly to stem cells, or whether daughter cells caused the tumour.
This study provides strong evidence suggesting that most bowel cancers start from stem cells.
The author of the study, Dr Owen Sansom from Cancer Research UK's Beatson Institute, said: 'When we studied the effect of blocking the APC gene in the parents (or stem cells) the results were striking and the cells started to transform within days.
'It was clear the ignition point for the disease was to be found in the stem cells.
'Using the same experiment, the daughter cells also developed into tumours, but not nearly as often as the stem cells changed.
'We are now looking to understand how we can use these results to seek out and destroy stem cells that are lacking the APC gene.' Lead author Professor Hans Clevers, from the Hubrecht Institute, said: 'We need to establish whether the stem cells behave the same way in human cancers as they do in mice and this will form the basis of the next stage of our research.
'We only looked at the APC gene to understand its onset of bowel cancer; it's likely that other genes also play a role in the progression of the disease.' Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: 'As in most cancers, the cell that the cancer originates from has remained elusive in bowel cancer.
'So this work is a big leap forward in our understanding of the origins of the disease.
'Bowel cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer so anything that adds to our understanding of the disease is very important work.'
