| Popis: |
Most of the conventional cancer treatments have limited selectivity, are temporarily effective, and have adverse side effects. The potential of cancer stem cell (CSC)-based therapies has recently attracted much attention to override the detrimental impact of conventional therapies. Here we have highlighted potential strategies including identification of cancer stem cell biomarkers, interfering with circuitry network associated with drug resistance, sensitization of CSC to chemotherapy, and radiation therapy through protein targeting. CSCs display differential metabolic activity, specific signaling pathway activity in tumor initiation, metastasis, and drug resistance. Thus identification of CSC-specific markers distinct from the total cancer cell population is essential. Given the fact that the stem cell is one of the key components of organogenesis and maintenance of homeostasis throughout life, improvement of treatment modalities based on CSC therapies holds wish for better overall survival and better quality of life of cancer sufferers, specifically for patients with metastatic disorder. Therefore, in this book chapter, we have mainly discussed aberrant regulation of gene expression and some signaling pathways in CSCs and implication of CSC surface markers for designing new therapies for better clinical outcome. |
