Tumor budding of cervical squamous cell carcinoma: epithelial-mesenchymal transition-like cancer stem cells?

ABSTRACT: Recent evidence indicates that cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the origin of cancers. Scientists have identified CSCs in various tumors and have suggested the existence of a variety of states of CSCs. The existence of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-like CSCs has been confirmed in vitro, but they have not been identified in vivo. Tumor budding was defined as single cell or clusters of ≤ 5 cells at the invasive front of cancers. Such tumor budding is hypothesized to be closely related to EMT and linked to CSCs, especially to those migrating at the invasive front. Therefore, tumor budding has been proposed to represent EMT-like stem cells. However, this hypothesis has not yet been proven. Thus, we studied the expression of EMT markers, certain CSC markers of tumor budding,

SUBMITTER: Zheng S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9291004 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature