Cancer stem cells: master gatekeepers and regulators of cancer growth and metastasis Introduction

نویسنده

  • Jeremy N. Rich
چکیده

Although cancer treatment has progressed significantly since the emergence of scientific oncology in the early 19th century, the disease remains incurable. Almost all deaths among cancer patients are attributed to treatment resistance, relapse, and metastasis. Yet, the mechanisms of resistance and disease spread are unclear.Mounting experimental and clinical evidence suggests that the stem cell-like properties of a subpopulation of tumorigenic cancer cells, known as cancer stem cells (CSCs), may underlie a broad spectrum of cancer pathophysiology, including cancer initiation, growth, treatment resistance, disease recurrence, and metastasis. This “Cancer Stem Cells: Master Gatekeepers and Regulators ofCancerGrowthandMetastasis” supplement reviews fundamental CSC biology, discusses how these cells inform our understanding ofmechanisms governing key tumor functions, and provides insight from key opinion leaders regarding the challenges and future directions of CSC research. Cancer prognosis and treatment efficacy may be limited by molecular and cellular heterogeneity between and within individual tumors. How such differences develop from disease inception through metastasis in various types of cancer remains uncertain. In “Cancer Stem Cells: Understanding Tumor Hierarchy and Heterogeneity,” I provide historical highlights of the CSC hypothesis, key functional stemness properties of CSCs, and comparisons and contrasts of such functions with those of normal stem cells as context to outline the role of CSCs in models of cancer cell hierarchies that may account for tumor heterogeneity. Studies suggest that dysregulation of normal homeostatic and developmental signaling pathways drive the hallmarks of CSCs, such as self-renewal and differentiation into heterogeneous cancer cell populations. Unsurprisingly, several normal stem cell

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Role of mesenchymal stem cells in growth and progression of cancer and prospective potentials in cancer therapy

Introduction: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are present in most tissues of the body. These cells are involved in various biological processes, such as maintaining tissue homeostasis and wound healing. Recent studies have shown that tumor associated MSCs (TA-MSCs) are also present in tumor microenvironment (TME) of most solid tumors. MSCs have a strong tendency to migration toward tumor tissues....

متن کامل

Investigating the role of signaling pathways and cancer stem cells in esophageal cancer with a therapeutic approach

Esophageal cancer (EC) is the sixth main cause of cancer death worldwide. Important genes associated with esophageal cancer include FOXO3, AKT, and GSK3β. Excessive FOXO3 expression inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells. The expression of AKT is involved in controlling cell growth in tumors. GSK3β activity is higher in cancer tissues. Given the effective role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in...

متن کامل

Double Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Therapy and Induction of Tumors

Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death all around the world with an estimated 1.2 million new cases and a half million deaths each year. Although some curing methods such as surgery and chemotherapy are used in the early stage of CRC, targeted therapy is one of the principal modes of cancer treatment that could be a reliable ...

متن کامل

Tumorigenicity of Esophageal Cancer Stem Cells (ECSCs) in nude mouse xenograft model

Background and objectives: Modeling cancer in vivo is a very important tool to investigate cancer pathogenesis and molecular mechanisms involved in cancer progression. Laboratory mice are the most common animal used for rebuilding human cancer in vivo. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the main reason of failure in cancer therapy because of tumor relapse and metastasis. Isolation of cancer stem cell...

متن کامل

A Glance into Cancer Stem Cells

The presence of stem cells in leukemia and solid tumors has been demonstrated in recent decades. Cancer stem cells have the potency of tumorigenesis; furthermore, they have the ability of self-renewing and differentiation like other stem cells. They also play important role in the process of tumor invasion and metastasis. Several studies have been performed to discover the spe...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره 95  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2016