Cancer stem cells: The challenges ahead

✍ Scribed by Medema, Jan Paul

• Book ID: 120080857
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 355 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1465-7392
• DOI: 10.1038/ncb2717

✦ Synopsis

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been proposed as the driving force of tumorigenesis and the seeds of metastases. However, their existence and role remain a topic of intense debate. Recently, the identification of CSCs in endogenously developing mouse tumours has provided further support for this concept. Here I discuss the challenges in identifying CSCs, their dependency on a supportive niche and their role in metastasis, and propose that stemness is a flexible — rather than fixed — quality of tumour cells that can be lost and gained.