Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is physiological in embryogenesis and wound healing but also associated with the formation of cancer stem cells (CSCs). Many EMT signaling pathways are implicated in CSC formation, but the precise underlying mechanisms of CSC formation remain elusive. We have previously demonstrated that PKC is critical for EMT induction and CSC formation in inducible ...

Despite expansion of resident cardiac stem cells (CSCs; c-kit+Lin-) after myocardial infarction, endogenous repair processes are insufficient to prevent adverse cardiac remodeling and heart failure (HF). This suggests that the microenvironment in post-ischemic and failing hearts compromises CSC regenerative potential. Inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF), are increased ...

There is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that human tumors are driven and maintained by a sub-population of cells, known as cancer stem cells (CSC). In the case of head and neck cancer, such cells have been characterised by high expression levels of CD44 cell surface glycoprotein, while we have previously shown the presence of two diverse oral CSC populations in vitro, with differen...

CD44, a cancer stem cell (CSC)-related surface marker, correlates with local control after radiotherapy of early laryngeal cancer. For the first time, a CSC-related marker has been functionally validated for radiotherapy in patients. CD44 expression bears the potential to predict the outcome of radiotherapy by assessment of CSC density.

BACKGROUND To demonstrate the involvement of tobacco smoking in the pathophysiology of lung disease, the responses of pulmonary epithelial cells to cigarette smoke condensate (CSC) - the particulate fraction of tobacco smoke - were examined. METHODS The human alveolar epithelial cell line A549 and normal human bronchial epithelial cells (NHBEs) were exposed to 0.4 microg/ml CSC, a concentrati...

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the causative factor in the development and progression of cervical cancers in >97% of the cases, although insufficient. Epidemiological studies suggest an elevated risk of cervical cancer for cigarette smokers; therefore, we examined cigarette smoke-induced DNA damage and repair in HPV16-transformed human ectocervical cells (ECT1/E6 E7). Cells were treated with ci...

AIMS CD44, CD24 and ALDH1 are the most consistently used biomarkers to identify and characterise the breast cancer stem cell (CSC) phenotype. However, most studies performed until now analysed samples of invasive ductal carcinomas of no special type (IDC-NST). Therefore, prevalence and clinical significance of these CSC markers in breast carcinomas of special histological types (SHT) is largely...

Game theory is not like the reinforcement learning which we have just talked about. In the game theory, the condition that one is playing against someone else is considered. Furthermore, game theory is not about learning, it does not learn from data or previous instances, but tries to figure out what to do given a specific game rule. A game could be described using a game matrix. The two player...