Hunting down the dominating subclone of cancer stem cells as a potential new therapeutic target in multiple myeloma: An artificial intelligence perspective

Figure 6 Blockade of the dominating subclonal switchboard signals in cancer stem cells as a new therapeutic strategy to suppress the dominating subclone shift to control cancer progression and post-treatment cancer recurrence. Showed is the proposed new treatment paradigm that should target the subclonal-switchboard signals (SSS). Blocking the dominating subclonal SSS leads to subclonal quiescence, so keeping tumors alive but small and manageable (dormant/quiescent subclone). Note that SSS as mechanisms for leading to shifting dominating subclones as triggered by environmental cues (stress) for cancer progression and post-treatment. A cancer subclone may gain a mutation that, in the appropriate environment cue, leads to dominating subclonal activation due to positive selection. Showed lettering and lines/ arrows in the black color is the current concept of a treatment strategy for cancer- dominant subclonal cells (cancer stem cells) that may acquire a mutation in a suitable environment, triggering to dominating subclonal expansion and growth. When this dominating subclone is explicitly destroyed, it sends out dominating subclonal-SSS to a dormant/quiescent subclonal cell, which gets activated for dominating subclonal expansion and growth (adopted from[38]).