TY - JOUR
T1 - Cancer stem cells, metabolism, and therapeutic significance
AU - Yang, Mengqi
AU - Liu, Panpan
AU - Huang, Peng
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81502573) and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (no. 2014A030310421).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, International Society of Oncology and BioMarkers (ISOBM).
PY - 2016/5/1
Y1 - 2016/5/1
N2 - Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have attracted much attention of the research community in the recent years. Due to their highly tumorigenic and drug-resistant properties, CSCs represent important targets for developing novel anticancer agents and therapeutic strategies. CSCs were first described in hematopoietic malignancies and subsequently identified in various types of solid tumors including brain, breast, lung, colon, melanoma, and ovarian cancer. CSCs possess special biological properties including long-term self-renewal capacity, multi-lineage differentiation, and resistance to conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As such, CSCs are considered as a major source of residual disease after therapy leading to disease occurrence. Thus, it is very important to understand the cellular survival mechanisms specific to CSCs and accordingly develop effective therapeutic approaches to eliminate this subpopulation of cancer cells in order to improve the treatment outcome of cancer patients. Possible therapeutic strategies against CSCs include targeting the self-renewal pathways of CSCs, interrupting the interaction between CSCs and their microenvironment, and exploiting the unique metabolic properties of CSCs. In this review article, we will provide an overview of the biological characteristics of CSCs, with a particular focus on their metabolic properties and potential therapeutic strategies to eliminate CSCs.
AB - Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have attracted much attention of the research community in the recent years. Due to their highly tumorigenic and drug-resistant properties, CSCs represent important targets for developing novel anticancer agents and therapeutic strategies. CSCs were first described in hematopoietic malignancies and subsequently identified in various types of solid tumors including brain, breast, lung, colon, melanoma, and ovarian cancer. CSCs possess special biological properties including long-term self-renewal capacity, multi-lineage differentiation, and resistance to conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As such, CSCs are considered as a major source of residual disease after therapy leading to disease occurrence. Thus, it is very important to understand the cellular survival mechanisms specific to CSCs and accordingly develop effective therapeutic approaches to eliminate this subpopulation of cancer cells in order to improve the treatment outcome of cancer patients. Possible therapeutic strategies against CSCs include targeting the self-renewal pathways of CSCs, interrupting the interaction between CSCs and their microenvironment, and exploiting the unique metabolic properties of CSCs. In this review article, we will provide an overview of the biological characteristics of CSCs, with a particular focus on their metabolic properties and potential therapeutic strategies to eliminate CSCs.
KW - Cancer stem cells
KW - Chemotherapy
KW - Drug resistance
KW - Glycolysis
KW - Reactive oxygen species (ROS)
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U2 - 10.1007/s13277-016-4945-x
DO - 10.1007/s13277-016-4945-x
M3 - Review article
C2 - 26864589
AN - SCOPUS:84957641131
SN - 1010-4283
VL - 37
SP - 5735
EP - 5742
JO - Tumor Biology
JF - Tumor Biology
IS - 5
ER -