MicroRNA-34a: Potent Tumor Suppressor, Cancer Stem Cell Inhibitor, and Potential Anticancer Therapeutic.

ABSTRACT: Overwhelming evidence indicates that virtually all treatment-naive tumors contain a subpopulation of cancer cells that possess some stem cell traits and properties and are operationally defined as cancer cell stem cells (CSCs). CSCs manifest inherent heterogeneity in that they may exist in an epithelial and proliferative state or a mesenchymal non-proliferative and invasive state. Spontaneous tumor progression, therapeutic treatments, and (epi)genetic mutations may also induce plasticity in non-CSCs and reprogram them into stem-like cancer cells. Intrinsic cancer cell heterogeneity and induced cancer cell plasticity, constantly and dynamically, generate a pool of CSC subpopulations with varying levels of epigenomic stability and stemness. Despite the dynamic and transient nature of CSCs, t

SUBMITTER: Li WJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7982597 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature