Current Signal Transduction Therapy - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2013

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are rare tumor cells that exhibit stem cell properties such as self-renewal capacity and pluripotency. In recent years, cancer stem cells have been recognized as key tumor-initiating cells that are therapyresistant and highly tumorogenic and therefore may play a pivotal role in cancer recurrence following chemotherapy. While chemotherapy is often capable of inducing cell death in tumors and red Read More

The emergence of low molecular weight kinase inhibitors as “targeted” drugs has led to remarkable advances in the treatment of cancer patients. The clinical benefits of these tumor therapies, however, vary widely in patient populations and with duration of treatment. Intrinsic and acquired resistance against such drugs limits their efficacy. In addition to the well studied mechanisms of resistance based upon drug transport a Read More

Although early stage disease detection and treatment options for clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) improved in recent years, prognosis of patients with late stage ccRCC remains poor, mostly due to development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors and mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors resistance followed by disease progression. Cancer stem cells (ccRCC-CSC) model has focused a significant attention in recent Read More

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a kinase protein involved in PI3K/AKT signaling with a central role in the processes of cell growth, survival and angiogenesis. Frequent mutations of this pathway make upstream and downstream components novel targets for tailored therapy design. Two mTOR inhibitors – everolimus and temsirolimus - enable an increase in overall survival (OS) or progression-free survival (PFS Read More

Clear - cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is a histological subtype of renal cell carcinoma - the most prevalent adult kidney cancer. Causes of ccRCC are not completely understood and therefore number of available therapies is limited. As a consequence of tumor chemo- and radioresistance as well as restrictions in offered targeted therapies, overall response rate is still unsatisfactory. Moreover, a significant group of patients (ci Read More

The present article highlights diverse roles of stem cells in healthy state, oncology and regenerative medicine in comparison to the Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC) “stem cells”. Furthermore, we support the notion of urgent need to change the terminology of “cancer stem cells” into tumor-propagating cells (TPCs), and to diversify terms of kidney stem and kidney progenitor cell. We present the role of normal stem an Read More

Metastasis is a complex process that propagates cells from the primary or initial site of the cancer occurrence to distant parts of the body. Cancer cells break from the cancer site and circulate through the bloodstream or lymph vessels, allowing them to reach nearly all parts of the body. These circulating tumour cells (CTCs) contain specialized metastasisinitiating cells (MICs) that reside in the biological heterogeneous primary tu Read More

The successful treatment of renal cancer remains a therapeutic challenge. Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC) is resistant to conventional radio and chemotherapy, but complete response has been observed after immunotherapy with high-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon (IFN)-α. Nevertheless, immunotherapy strategies have shown response rates in the range of 5 to 10%. For the past 20 years, the mechanisms of Read More

Malignant gliomas are common primary tumors of the central nervous system, characterized by aggressive cell proliferation, diffuse infiltration and resistance to conventional therapy. Glioblastoma (former Glioblastoma multiforme, GBM), grade IV astrocytoma, is the most aggressive tumor, with a median survival of around 14 months. New therapies against this devastating and invariably fatal disease are needed. Stem-like cell p Read More

Our current understanding of cancer-stem cells (CSCs) is that they are slow growing, generally mesenchymallike cells capable of generating tumors. Convincing evidence for the existence of such cells comes from recent lineage tracing experiments. CSCs have been reported as being resistant to conventional drug treatment and have been considered as being responsible for failure of chemotherapy. Recently, several Read More