Open AccessConcise Review: Stem Cells in Pancreatic Cancer: From Concept to Translation
Author(s) -
Raj Deepak,
Aicher Alexandra,
Heeschen Christopher
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
stem cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.159
H-Index - 229
eISSN - 1549-4918
pISSN - 1066-5099
DOI - 10.1002/stem.2114
Subject(s) - biology , pancreatic cancer , cancer stem cell , translation (biology) , cancer research , stem cell , disease , cancer , chemotherapy , in vivo , bioinformatics , medicine , genetics , gene , messenger rna
Pancreatic cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been first described in 2007 and since then have emerged as an intriguing entity of cancer cells with distinct functional features including self‐renewal and exclusive in vivo tumorigenicity. The heterogeneous pancreatic CSC pool has been implicated in tumor propagation as well as metastatic spread. Clinically, the most important feature of CSCs is their strong resistance to standard chemotherapy, which results in fast disease relapse, even with today's more advanced chemotherapeutic regimens. Therefore, novel therapeutic strategies to most efficiently target pancreatic CSCs are being developed and their careful clinical translation should provide new avenues to eradicate this deadly disease. S tem C ells 2015;33:2893—2902