Cancer Stem Cell Based Targeted Therapy

What is it about?

Cancer stem cells, also known as tumor-initiating cells, are a subpopulation of tumor cells found in many human cancers, which are endowed with self-renewal and pluripotency. Cancer stem cells may be more resistant and less accessible to conventional anticancer therapies than the average cancer cell. They can easily escape the cytotoxic effects of standard chemotherapy, thereby resulting in tumor relapse. Despite significant progresses in related research, effective elimination of cancer stem cells still remains an unmet clinical need. This thematic issue presents recent advances in the field of cancer stem cells, including the various phenotypes of CSCs, plasticity of CSCs, relationship between CSCs and therapeutic resistance, CSCs and tumor microenviroment, Immunological properties of CSCs and immunotherapy, and therapeutic strategies targeting CSCs, etc. These topics not only provide a new theoretical basis for in-depth discussion of tumor occurrence, development, and prognosis evaluation but also bring new ideas for the targeted treatment of cancer.

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Why is it important?

Now, cancer stem cell is a hot field. In the past few years, the focus of CSC research has shifted from using cultured tumor cell clones to the use of freshly isolated tumor cells and xenotransplantation of early generation tumor cells. An increasing number of investigators have recognized that xenotransplantation is the key to evaluating the existence of CSC. Given the fact that CSCs seem to be generally more resilient and less accessible than average cancer cells to conventional anticancer therapies, they are easy to escape cytotoxic effects of standard chemotherapy, resulting in tumor relapse. This therapeutic relapse may be caused by the lack of efficiency in eliminating the CSC population in the tumor mass. To reduce such patient relapse, therefore, CSC based therapies have been introduced as a novel concept and hold tremendous potential for the treatment of malignant diseases due to the ability to eliminate tumor-initiating cells towards the complete eradication of minimal residual disease in patients. It is becoming an emerging area in cancer targeted drug design.

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