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Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) in melanoma: There's smoke, but is there fire?
Author(s) -
Brinckerhoff Constance E.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of cellular physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.529
H-Index - 174
eISSN - 1097-4652
pISSN - 0021-9541
DOI - 10.1002/jcp.25796
Subject(s) - cancer , melanoma , smoke , cancer stem cell , cancer research , biology , chemistry , genetics , organic chemistry
Cancer stem cells (CSCs), also called Tumor Initiating Cells (TICs), can be defined as cancer cells that are present within solid tumors or hematological cancers, which have characteristics associated with normal stem cells, but which can give rise to all cell types found in a particular cancer sample. CSCs, therefore, are transformed stem cells, which can self‐renew, differentiate into diverse progenies, and drive continuous tumor growth (Kreso & Dick, [Kreso, A., 2014], Cell Stem Cell, 14:275‐291; Schatton et al., [Schatton, T., 2008], Nature, 451:345‐349; Villani, Sabbatino, Ferrone, & Ferrone, [Villani, V., 2015], Melanoma Management, 2:109‐114; Zhou et al., [Zhou, B.‐B. S., 2009], Drug Discovery, 8:806–823) (Fig. ).The cancer stem cell hypothesis. Tumor cells are heterogeneous and only the tumor‐initiating cells have the ability to proliferate extensively, give rise to differentiated cells and form new tumors. There are various therapeutic strategies that could target tumor‐initiating cells. Killing these cells could be achieved by inhibiting their survival pathways. Some of the survival pathways that are used by tumor‐initiating cells could also be used by the bulk of the tumor, so agents targeting these pathways are expected to kill more than just tumor‐initiating cells (adapted from Zhou et al. 2009)