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World J Stem Cells. Oct 26, 2017; 9(10): 169-178
Published online Oct 26, 2017. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v9.i10.169
Tracing and targeting cancer stem cells: New venture for personalized molecular cancer therapy
Ramin Radpour
Ramin Radpour, Tumor Immunology and Cancer Stem Cells, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Department for BioMedical Research, University of Bern, 3008 Bern, Switzerland
Author contributions: Radpour R wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ramin Radpour, MSc, PhD, Tumor Immunology and Cancer Stem Cells, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Department for BioMedical Research, University of Bern, Murtenstrasse 35, 3008 Bern, Switzerland. ramin.radpour@dbmr.unibe.ch
Telephone: +41-31-6320956 Fax: +41-31-6323297
Received: July 10, 2017
Peer-review started: July 14, 2017
First decision: August 7, 2017
Revised: August 14, 2017
Accepted: September 3, 2017
Article in press: September 4, 2017
Published online: October 26, 2017
Abstract

Tumors consist of a mixture of heterogeneous cell types. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a minor sub-population within the bulk cancer fraction which has been found to reconstitute and propagate the disease and to be frequently resistant to chemotherapy, irradiation, cytotoxic drugs and probably also against immune attack. CSCs are considered as the seeds of tumor recurrence, driving force of tumorigenesis and metastases. This underlines the urgent need for innovative methods to identify and target CSCs. However, the role and existence of CSCs in therapy resistance and cancer recurrence remains a topic of intense debate. The underlying biological properties of the tumor stem cells are extremely dependent on numerous signals, and the targeted inhibition of these stem cell signaling pathways is one of the promising approaches of the new antitumor therapy approaches. This perspective review article summarizes the novel methods of tracing CSCs and discusses the hallmarks of CSC identification influenced by the microenvironment or by having imperfect detection markers. In addition, explains the known molecular mechanisms of therapy resistance in CSCs as reliable and clinically predictive markers that could enable the use of new targeted antitumor therapy in the sense of personalized medicine.

Keywords: Cancer stem cells, Cancer recurrence, Cancer therapy, Combination therapy, Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, Immunotherapy

Core tip: Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are small subpopulation of the tumor that can survive from conventional treatment, scape from the immune system and can cause recurrence of cancer disease. Therefore, any attempt in detection and selective therapeutic targeting of CSCs will ultimately lead to better cancer treatments and can play an important role in reducing the cancer related mortalities. This review highlights the trends and approaches in CSC tracing, isolating, characterizing and targeting, which are key strategies for a novel personalized molecular cancer therapy.