NANOG in Cancer Development

NANOG (also called NANOG1), one of the core pluripotency transcription factors, plays a critical role in maintaining self-renewal and pluripotency in normal embryonic stem cells. It has recently been reported that NANOG, especially NANOGP8, a retrotransposed homologue, is expressed in a variety of cancers and that its expression correlates with poor survival in cancer patients. Much of the published literature suggests that NANOGP8/NANOG1 enhances the defined characteristics of cancer stem cells, indicating that NANOG may function as an oncogene to promote carcinogenesis. In this chapter, we provide a brief update on the causal roles of NANOG in tumourigenesis, mechanistic aspects of NANOG's regulation of cancer stem cells, the functional relationship between NANOG1 and NANOGP8 and, finally, the unique biochemical properties of NANOG in cancer cells.