Lessons From the Embryo: An Unrejected Transplant and a Benign Tumor Publisher Pubmed



Rezalotfi A^{1, 2, 3} ; Vrynas AV⁴ ; Dehghanian M⁵ ; Rezaei N^{2, 6, 7, 8}
Source: Stem Cell Reviews and Reports Published:2021

Abstract

Embryogenesis is regarded the ‘miracle of life’, yet numerous aspects of this process are not fully understood. As the embryo grows in the mother’s womb, immune components, stem cells and microenvironmental cues cooperate among others to promote embryonic development. Evidently, these key players are frequently associated with transplantation failure and tumor growth. While the fields of transplantation and cancer biology do not overlap, both can be viewed from the perspective of an embryo. As an ‘unrejected transplant’ and a ‘benign tumor’, lessons from embryonic development may reveal features of transplants and tumors that have been overlooked. Therefore, eavesdropping at these natural complex events during pregnancy may inspire more durable approaches to arrest transplant rejection or cancer progression. © 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.