The mechanical properties of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and a pancreatic cancer subpopulation with stem cell properties have been increasingly recognized as potent modulators of the effective o...
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to play an important role in tumor recurrence and drug resistance, and present a major challenge in cancer therapy. The tumor microenvironment such as growth factors, nutri...
Extracellular matrix (ECM) is known to maintain epithelial integrity. In carcinogenesis ECM degradation triggers metastasis by controlling migration and differentiation including cancer stem cell (CSC) charact...
It is widely believed that targeting the tumour-initiating cancer stem cell (CSC) component of malignancy has great therapeutic potential, particularly in therapy-resistant disease. However, despite concerted ...
Tumor heterogeneity represents an ongoing challenge in the field of cancer therapy. Heterogeneity is evident between cancers from different patients (inter-tumor heterogeneity) and within a single tumor (intra...
Most cancers contain a subpopulation of highly tumorigenic cells, known as cancer stem cells (CSCs) or tumor-initiating cells (TICs). Targeting TICs may be essential to achieve cure, because of their self-rene...
Homeobox genes are master regulators of cell fate during embryonic development and their expression is altered in cancer. By regulating the balance between cell proliferation and differentiation, they maintain...
ADAM12 is upregulated in human breast cancers and is a predictor of chemoresistance in estrogen receptor-negative tumors. ADAM12 is induced during epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a feature associated wit...
Tumour progression is dependent on the interaction between tumour cells and cells of the surrounding microenvironment. The tumour is a dynamic milieu consisting of various cell types such as endothelial cells,...
More than 80% of intestinal neoplasia is associated with the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) mutation. Doublecortin-like kinase 1 (Dclk1), a kinase protein, is overexpressed in colorectal cancer and specifically...
Compelling evidence have demonstrated that bulk tumors can arise from a unique subset of cells commonly termed “cancer stem cells” that has been proposed to be a strong driving force of tumorigenesis and a key...
The initiation and progression of malignant tumors is driven by distinct subsets of tumor-initiating or cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) which develop therapy/apoptosis resistance and self-renewal capacity. In or...
Cancer stem cells are suggested to contribute to the extremely poor prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and dysregulation of symmetric and asymmetric stem cell division may be involved. Anticancer be...
Pilocytic astrocytomas (PAs) are the most common pediatric central nervous system neoplasms. In the majority of cases these tumors are benign and receive favorable prognosis following gross total surgical rese...
Colorectal cancer remains one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide. Colorectal cancer initiating cells (CCICs) are a small subpopulation responsible for malignant behaviors of colorectal cancer. Aberr...
Breast cancer is the major cause of cancer-related mortality in women. It is thought that quiescent stem-like cells within solid tumors are responsible for cancer maintenance, progression and eventual metastas...
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most commonly diagnosed leukemia in adults (25%) and comprises 15–20% in children. It is a genetically heterogeneous aggressive disease characterized by the accumulation of ...
Radiation therapy is one of the major tools of cancer treatment, and is widely used for a variety of malignant tumours. Radiotherapy causes DNA damage directly by ionization or indirectly via the generation of...
Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is associated with metastasis formation as well as with generation and maintenance of cancer stem cells. In this way, EMT contributes to tumor invasion, heterogeneity...
Melanoma is a form of cancer that initiates in melanocytes. Melanoma has multiple phenotypically distinct subpopulation of cells, some of them have embryonic like plasticity which are involved in self-renewal,...
The insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) signaling induces epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) program and contributes to metastasis and drug resistance in several subtypes of tumors. In preclinical stu...
Liver cancer is an often fatal malignant tumor with a high recurrence rate and chemoresistance. The major malignant phenotypes of cancer, including recurrence, metastasis, and chemoresistance, are related to t...
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cancer stem-like cells (CSC) are becoming highly relevant targets in anticancer drug discovery. A large body of evidence suggests that epithelial-mesenchymal transit...
Since leukemic stem cells (LSCs) or cancer stem cells (CSCs) were found in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in 1997, extensive studies have been contributed to identification and characterization of such cell popu...