Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2018 Dec 26. pii: S1357-2725(18)30277-2. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2018.12.017. [Epub ahead of print]

Self-renewal signaling pathways in breast cancer stem cells.

Vineela Nalla L¹, Kalia K¹, Khairnar A².

Abstract

Breast cancer, a death-dealing disease mainly affects the women populace in the world. Outmoded remedial treatments like chemo and radiotherapy against breast cancer have manifold limitations like systemic and local toxicity resulting in the failure of treatment and cancer relapse. Recurrence and treatment failure is due to the presence of the minor number of cells in the tumor called cancer stem cells (CSCs) stocked with the properties like epithelial-mesenchymal transition, drug resistibility, auto self-renewability, and stemness. But, the stemness in these cells is different from the normal stem cells with regards to their self-renewal signaling pathways which gets dysregulated due to genomic and epigenome changes. In the earlier period's headway in the cancer research led to the advancement of new targets by understanding the pathophysiological mechanism behind cancer progression but still, the mortality rate i. the breast cancer is at its peak due to their unclear understanding of the stemness signaling regulations. The present review highlights the current clinical limitations in treating cancer stem cells and discusses the recent writings of their stemness signaling regulations required in maintenance of self-renewal capability and metastasis. More importantly, it further describes the present clinical and preclinical updates targeting cancer stem cells pathways. A strong consideration of these signalings and developing the treatment strategies with the existed chemotherapy may possibly offer a promising approach to eradicate cancer stem cells for improving the cancer survival rate to persuade a long-term clinical response.