Cancer stem cells and breast cancer

Abstract

Received: February 29, 2020; Accepted: : March 11, 2020 Published: March 16, 2020 Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death in women, both globally and in the United States. In the US over 40,000 women die from the disease annually [1]. Although breast cancer is an extremely heterogeneous disease that may be characterized by the presence or absence of various phenotypic markers, the initiation, proliferation and ultimate metastasis of breast tumors is dependent on pluripotent cancer stem cells (CSCs); undifferentiated CSCs can self-renew and become differentiated into a variety of specialized cell types [2]. Compared with the majority of cells within a tumor, CSCs are more resistant to established methods of chemotherapy, including radio-, chemoand hormone treatments. When transplanted into an animal model, CSCs have the capacity to seed new tumors. CSCs typically exhibit a specific phenotypic signature of CD24low/-, CD44high, ALDH (aldehyde dehydrogenase) [3]. The cell surface glycoprotein, CD44 plays a role in cell/cell communication, cell adhesion and migration. Since CSCs resist conventional breast cancer therapies, there is an urgent need to develop specialized treatments to decrease their population and thereby reduce metastasis.