Repurposing Established Compounds to Target Pancreatic Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs).

ABSTRACT: The diagnosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) carries a dismal prognosis, in particular, when patients present with unresectable disease. While significant progress has been made in understanding the biology of PDAC, this knowledge has not translated into a clear clinical benefit and current chemotherapeutic strategies only offer a modest improvement in overall survival. Accordingly, novel approaches are desperately needed. One hypothesis that could-at least in part-explain the desolate response of PDAC to chemotherapy is the so-called cancer stem cell (CSC) concept, which attributes specific traits, such as chemoresistance, metastatic potential and a distinct metabolism to a small cellular subpopulation of the whole tumor. At the same time, however, some of these attributes cou

SUBMITTER: Renz BW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5635789 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature