BACKGROUND The root system of higher plants originates from the activity of a root meristem, which comprises a group of highly specialized and long-lasting stem cells. Their maintenance and number is controlled by the quiescent center (QC) cells and by feedback signaling from differentiated cells. Root meristems may have evolved from structurally distinct shoot meristems; however, no common pla...

Human breast cancers include cancer stem cell populations as well as non-tumorigenic cancer cells. Breast cancer stem cells possess self-renewal capability and thus are the root cause of recurrence and metastasis of malignant tumors. Hypoxia is a fundamental pathological feature of solid tumor tissues and exerts a wide range of effects on the biological behavior of cancer cells. However, there ...

The involvement of stemness factors in cancer initiation and progression has drawn much attention recently, especially after the finding that introducing four stemness factors in somatic cells is able to reprogram the cells back to an embryonic stem cell-like state. Following accumulating data revealing abnormal elevated expression levels of key stemness factors, like Nanog, Oct4, and Sox2, in ...

Cisplatin-resistant A549 and H157 (A549CisR and H157CisR) non-small cell lung cancer cells show increased stemness of cancer stem cells (CSCs) compared to their parental cells. We investigated whether interleukin-6 (IL-6) signaling contributes to this increased stemness in cisplatin-resistant cells. When A549CisR and H157CisR cells were treated with neutralizing IL-6 antibody, decreased cisplat...

The stemness hypothesis states that all stem cells use common mechanisms to regulate self-renewal and multi-lineage potential. However, gene expression meta-analyses at the single gene level have failed to identify a significant number of genes selectively expressed by a broad range of stem cell types. We hypothesized that stemness may be regulated by modules of homologs. While the expression o...

Cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) have been reported to play major roles in tumorigenesis, tumor relapse, and metastasis after therapy against colorectal carcinoma (CRC). Therefore, identification of colorectal CSC regulators could provide promising targets for CRC. Ligand-of-Numb protein X1 (LNX1) is one E3 ubiquitin ligase which mediates the ubiquitination and degradation of Numb. Although severa...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) hold great potential in cell therapies by virtue of the regenerative effects and immunomodulatory properties, but the scarce nature of MSCs makes ex vivo expansion indispensable prior to transplantation purposes. However, potential loss of stemness ensuing culture expansion has hindered the advancements in MSCs-based treatments. In principle, stemness could be pres...

Glioblastoma (GBM) stem cells (GSCs) represent tumor-propagating cells with stem-like characteristics (stemness) that contribute disproportionately to GBM drug resistance and tumor recurrence. Understanding the mechanisms supporting GSC stemness is important for developing therapeutic strategies for targeting GSC-dependent oncogenic mechanisms. Using GBM-derived neurospheres, we identified the ...

Considerable evidence suggests that proinflammatory pathways drive self-renewal of cancer stem-like cells (CSC), but the underlying mechanisms remain mainly undefined. Here we report that the let7 repressor LIN28B and its regulator IKBKB (IKKb) sustain cancer cell stemness by interacting with the Wnt/TCF7L2 (TCF4) signaling pathway to promote cancer progression. We found that LIN28B expression ...

the key role of chemokine receptor cxcr4 in the maintenance of stemness property of stem cells has been shown recently. the low level laser irradiation (llli) is being used currently in a wide variety of clinical cases as a therapeutic tool for wound healing, relieving pain and destroying tumor cells. the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of llli mimicking low level laser therapy (ll...