Anaplasia is the process in which cells lose their specialized characteristics, assuming characteristics similar to embryonic cells.
Understanding the process of anaplasia is important for understanding how tumor cells develop and behave.
Many tumor cells can exhibit this loss of differentiation, organization, and specific function of normal cells. This change usually indicates that the tumor is more aggressive and likely malignant.
Cells affected by anaplasia:
This condition is often associated with cancer. In normal cells, there is a delicate balance between cell division, differentiation, and apoptosis (the programmed cell death process that naturally occurs in the body).
However, when cells undergo anaplasia, an imbalance is triggered, and they lose their ability to differentiate into cell types and instead multiply in a disordered manner.
Anaplastic cells usually have larger nuclei, lose their normal organization, have more nucleus compared to the rest of the cell, and present problems with chromosomes.
These changes can cause cells to function abnormally and have a greater chance of spreading to other parts of the body, which can help cancer spread faster.
