[Therapeutic Implication Targeting for Cancer Stem Cells].

ABSTRACT

Cancer has been viewed as a heterogeneous population of cells.While the large majority of cells that constituting tumors are differentiated, and eventually stop dividing, only a minority population of cells, termed cancer stem cells, is capable of unlimited self-renewal and multi-differentiation, just like somatic stem cells in normal tissues.Cancer stem cells have been identified in a variety of cancers of the blood, brain, stomach, colon, and pancreas.In this review we present current evidence supporting the cancer stem cell model of tumor progression, and discuss the experimental and therapeutic implications.