Drug resistance in cancer therapy: the Pandora's Box of cancer stem cells.

ABSTRACT: Drug resistance is the main culprit of failure in cancer therapy that may lead to cancer relapse. This resistance mostly originates from rare, but impactful presence of cancer stem cells (CSCs). Ability to self-renewal and differentiation into heterogeneous cancer cells, and harboring morphologically and phenotypically distinct cells are prominent features of CSCs. Also, CSCs substantially contribute to metastatic dissemination. They possess several mechanisms that help them to survive even after exposure to chemotherapy drugs. Although chemotherapy is able to destroy the bulk of tumor cells, CSCs are left almost intact, and make tumor entity resistant to treatment. Eradication of a tumor mass needs complete removal of tumor cells as well as CSCs. Therefore, it is important to elucidate ke

SUBMITTER: Rezayatmand H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9066908 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature